


like the light of anything that grows

by zenstrike



Series: like the light of anything that grows [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Childhood Friends AU, Domestic Fluff, Falling In Love, Family, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Family Fluff, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Self-indulgent fluff, a whole bunch of dumb tropes, me: what if i just wrote about little lance because i love him, me: what if klunk spent their whole lives together, me: what if...everything was just...soft..., the softest goddamn thing that i’ve ever written and i’ve written some SOFT GARBAGE OKAY, the work of love is in years
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2019-10-31 06:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 78,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17844551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: Keith, Lance, and Hunk grow up together.





	1. Chapter 1

    “There’s a boy your age down the street,” Isabel says to Lance one morning over breakfast, about an hour before his dad’s due to get them.

    Rachel perks up over her toast and eggs, beaming at Lance.

    Lance slurps at his hot chocolate in a poor imitation of his soon-to-be step-mother. “Yeah?” he says.

    Upstairs, Veronica shouts something. Marco answers, just as loud and just as muffled. Isabel ignores them so Lance does too.

    “Yeah,” Isabel says, her smile twitching over her coffee mug. Lance holds his mug to his face and they smile at each other.

    Rachel shovels the rest of her eggs into her mouth.

    Lance’s mother emerges from the little office across the hall, looking frazzled and tired. She looks less exhausted with her hair short, but it curls in funny ways when she tugs at it and Lance and Rachel can’t help but grin at her.

    Isabel is up, lightning-quick, and Lance’s mother steals her seat with a sigh. She squints at Lance. Lance licks hot chocolate from his lips.

    “You need a haircut,” his mother says. “Tell your dad you need a haircut.”

    “Nah,” Lance replies cheerfully and stretches across the table to drag the bag of mini marshmallows from Rachel. Isabel returns and sets a cup of coffee in front of Lance’s mother and steals a marshmallow from the bag.

    Lance dumps a bunch in his hot chocolate.

    His mother grimaces.

    “Finish up,” Isabel says. “Maybe you can go say hello before your dad gets here.”

    Lance licks a marshmallow smear out of his mug and looks up at Isabel, thinking. He usually likes to help clean up after breakfast (Isabel says he’s _exceptionally_ good at drying plates) and help push his mother into a lying down position so she’ll nap and he likes to generally just annoy Marco—but.

    “Say hello?” His mother sniffs her coffee. Lance can smell the cinnamon from here, a little brown sugar. Isabel says it’s a magic trick she learned from her dad.

    “To the new boy down the street,” Isabel says, wrapping the bag of marshmallows closed. She glances at Lance and taps the side of her mouth. Lance catches on a moment later and scrubs at something sticky on his lips. Probably chocolate. Probably marshmallow. Worth it.

    “Ah,” his mother says and takes a long slurp of her drink. “With that nice couple—”

    “Yes.”

    “He’s Lance’s age, isn’t he?”

    “I think so.”

    Across the table, Rachel makes a small burp. Lance laughs. Rachel grins.

    Their mother and Isabel continue talking.

    “They’re so young. Have you asked them about it?”

    “About it? About the little boy?”

    “I’m sure he has a name.”

    “Regina.”

    “Mm?”

    “Don’t snoop.”

    “I don’t _snoop_.”

    Rachel rolls her eyes and Lance silently agrees: their mother is _exceptionally_ good at snooping.

    “I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”

    “I’m not. I didn’t know what _I_ was doing.”

    “They’re nice boys.”

    “Ha! Boys, she says. In the same breath she insists they ‘know what they’re doing.’”

    Rachel scoops up the last of her eggs and slips from the table. Lance takes that as his cue to finish his hot chocolate, gulping down the rest of it and swallowing two marshmallows whole. At least they’re small.

    “Where is he?” he pipes up and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand.

    His mother and Isabel look at him.

    “The boy,” Lance continues. “The one _my_ age.” And maybe he says it with a little bluster, a little pride. He hasn’t made many friends _his_ age in his mother’s new neighbourhood (his new, second neighbourhood).

    “He lives with Mr. Shirogane,” his mother replies.

    Lance blinks at her. “With Shiro?” he clarifies.

    His mother sighs again. “Lance,” she starts.

    “He says to call him Shiro!”

    “Yes,” Isabel cuts in. “With Shiro. Are you going to go say hello?”

    “Yup.”

    “Do you want to wash your face first?”

    “No.”

    “Do it anyway.”

    Lance groans but slides off his chair and hurries to the kitchen sink. He splashes some water on his face, scrubs diligently, and Isabel says he’s “passable” so he beams.

    “Say ‘hello’ and ‘how are you’ before you break into their house,” his mother insists.

    “‘kay.”

    Lance pauses just long enough to watch Isabel straighten his mother’s hair, and the kiss his mother presses to the back of Isabel’s hand, and then he hears Marco say something from the stairs. Lance dashes to the door with his shoes half-on and leaps down the front steps with his shoelaces flailing.

    He knows the way to Shiro’s house, three doors down the street. He and Rachel have hopped their way over to say hello and Not Ask about Shiro’s prosthetic countless times already. Rachel likes the books Shiro’s fiancé stuffs their bookshelves with, and Lance likes the stories Shiro tells—something different than the ones in the books on the shelves or the games Lance likes to play with his sisters.

    He knows the way, it isn’t far, and he knows that the boy sitting on the front step with a book in his lap is new.

    Lance skids to a stop, his shoelaces flying.

    The boy’s book is red, with something on the cover that looks a little like a dragon. In the ten seconds Lance watches him, the boy shoves his hair out of his face four times, and his lips part and close a little like Hunk’s fish, and a little like when Lance’s mother is in the middle of a translation, and a little like when Lance is trying to sound out new words.

    The ten seconds pass. The boy doesn’t look up. Lance gives in to his impatience and shuffles up the walk.

    “Hi,” he says, tucking his hands behind his back and smilimg.

    The boy doesn’t look up immediately. He scrunches up his face and stares at his book a little longer and then lifts his chin and blinks up at Lance. For a fifth time, his hair falls in his face and, for a fifth time, he shoves it out of the way.

    “Hi,” Lance says again.

    The boy closes his book.

    Lance frowns.

    “Hi,” he tries, just one more time.

    “Hello,” the boy finally says. He blinks up at Lance. His hair falls back in his face and he huffs once and reopens his book.

    “I’m Lance,” Lance says quickly, before the boy starts to read again. “How old’re you?”

    The boy looks up again, frowning and blinking. Lance thinks that his mother would say this boy needs a haircut, too. Maybe they could hide together.

    “Uh,” says the boy. He shifts a little and glances behind him at Shiro’s closed door. “I’m eight.”

    Eight!

    Lance frowns some more. “I’m seven,” he admits, a little of what his father calls “sullen.”

    “Well,” says the boy. “Okay.”

    They look at each other.

    Lance considers the situation.

    “Well,” he repeats and squares his shoulders like he’s seen Veronica do at school. “I guess that’s close enough.”

    “To _what_?”

    Lance rolls his eyes. “To my age.”

    The boy shoves his hair out of his face again. “Okay, sure.” He taps his fingers against his book. “I’m going to read now.”

    “That’s a pretty big book,” Lance says, and shuffles closer. The boy hugs the book closer to him, scowling, but he lifts the cover enough that Lance can see that that is _definitely_ a dragon. “Is it fun?”

    “Uh,” the boy says again. “I guess.”

    “You guess?”

    “I guess.”

    “Is there a dragon in it?”

    The boy tilts his head and then the door opens behind him.

    They both look up.

    “Hi,” says the boy.

    “Hi Adam,” Lance says, beaming.

    Adam rocks on his feet in the doorway, looking between them. “Hi Lance,” he says finally, and then he looks at the boy: “Want a hair tie so you can go play?”

    “I’m reading,” the boy says at the same time Lance says: “Yeah!”

    The boy whips back around to scowl at Lance again.

    Adam takes this as a chance and squats down, pulling the boy’s hair back with a magically produced hair tie. The boy makes an outraged noise and drops his book. Lance rushes forward to scoop it up, flipping through it while Adam and the boy briefly struggle.

    “You’re so weird!”

    “Come on, Keith, you can’t even _see_ —”

    “There’s no pictures,” Lance says, frowning. “I thought there’d be dragons.”

    “There are dragons,” Adam and the boy say together, which just makes Adam smile wide and the boy squirm away.

    “We’re going to play now,” the boy says after a moment of frowning up at Adam.

    Adam crosses his arms. “Are you?”

    “That’s what I said.”

    Lance isn’t quite sure what’s happening so he flips through the book one more time, just in case. He finds zero pictures of dragons.

    “Do you want to come inside?” Adam says, shuffling to the side of the door. “Shiro’s making pancakes.”

    “Pancakes!” Lance cheers.

    The boy grabs his wrist. Hard.

    “Nope,” he says. “We’re leaving.”

    “We are?” Lance says.

    “Yeah.”

    “I love pancakes.”

    “Yeah,” the boy says again, sounding almost sad. “Me too.”

    And then before Lance has time to process exactly what that means, the boy tugs them both back the way they came. Lance makes a dignified squawk as they go. Adam hollers a goodbye.

    “Where’re we going?” Lance asks, stumbling along after the boy.

    “This way,” the boy replies and drags Lance by his own front door. Veronica and Rachel wave from the window.

    Lance is still holding the book.

    They get to the end of the block. They look both ways, and then the boy shrugs and tugs Lance across the street.

    Lance loses a shoe.

    “Why didn’t you tie that?” the boy asks.

    “I was coming to meet you,” Lance grumbles and tugs his wrist out of the boy’s hold to dash back to get his shoe.

    The boy follows. “Me?”

    “Yeah, you!”

    They scurry to the other side of the street and plop down on the curb together. Lance shoves his shoe back on and briefly considers tying his laces.

    “I can’t play too long,” he says and leans back on his hands. “My dad’s coming.”

    “Oh.”

    Lance glances at him. “Do you still want to play?”

    The boy shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t want to eat Shiro’s pancakes.”

    “You should eat Isabel’s pancakes.”

    “Who’s that?”

    “My mom’s girlfriend.” Lance pauses. He looks up and smiles at the boy, with his hair all messy tied back and hands tapping at his knees. “She’s going to be my step-mom soon.”

    “Oh,” he says. “That’s nice.”

    “Yup.”

    Lance drops the book in the boy’s lap. “What’s your name, dragon-boy?”

    “Oh,” he says again. Lance snickers and earns another scowl. “I’m Keith.”

    “Okay, Keith!” Lance leaps to his feet, wobbles for a moment, and then puts his hands on his hips and grins down at Keith. “We’re friends now. Want to see the park?”

    Keith clutches his book, still frowning, but says: “Sure. Want to tie your shoelaces?”

    “Nah.”

    Lance hoists Keith to his feet and drags Keith along after him, ignoring Keith’s grumbling protests.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of this fic comes from “Flowers” by Anne Michaels. 
> 
> This won’t be very long, I think, but it’s also kind of just a self-indulgent side project to all my self-indulgent side projects LMAO. The challenge will be to not let this be a yltwil remix. 
> 
> SIGH


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> marco swears so i upped the rating lmao

Monday, Luis drops them off at school. Veronica sits in the back, squished between Lance and Rachel, and Marco sleeps in the front. Luis scowls the whole way.

Lance tries to cheer him up by telling him all about their weekend.

“Saturday, Isabel made pancakes,” he says cheerfully to the back of his eldest brother’s head. “Yesterday, we had eggs!”

“That’s great,” Luis says.

Veronica heaves a huge sigh.

Lance ignores her. “And there’s a new boy on the street!”

“You and Marco are the new boys on the street.”

Marco snores.

Rachel kicks at the back of his seat and earns a shout from Luis.

“Yeah, but this boy’s even newer,” Lance continues. “He’s eight. His name’s Keith. We’re friends now.”

“That’s nice, Lance.”

“He lives with Shiro. Do you remember Shiro?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Lance pauses. Veronica sighs again. He ignores her again. “Well, he lives down the street. He’s got one arm and Keith says he makes bad pancakes.”

“Lance!” Rachel hisses.

“What!”

Veronica sighs once more, and Luis joins in.

Marco snorts a snore and slumps against the passenger side window. Rachel kicks his seat again.

Lance reaches for the back of Luis’s seat and tugs himself forward, his seat belt straining and his nails digging into the battered upholstery of his brother’s car. “You should come next week,” Lance says.

He sees Luis try to glance at him in the rearview mirror, and then he sees Luis scowl. “Lance,” he scolds. “Sit.”

“I am sitting.”

“Sit back!”

Lance huffs and scoots back, crossing his arms. “You’re making Isabel sad,” he says, maybe yells.

“Yeah, well,” Luis grumbles. “Isabel makes  _ me _ sad.”

Lance thinks Luis wouldn’t be so grumpy if he got to try Isabel’s pancakes, but he decides to keep that to himself. For now.

Rachel and Veronica get out first. They each peck a kiss to Luis’s cheek before they stumble out of the car. Luis makes a show of grumbling about his need for personal space but they all know he likes it when they give him a little love. Marco wakes up long enough to bang on the window to say goodbye to their sisters, and long enough for Luis to yell at him in a rapidfire multilingual rant that Marco makes several “meh” sounds at.

Lance enjoys all of this. He switches to the middle seat when Luis is busy with Marco and pretends he’s driving alongside his brother.

Marco is back to snoring in moments.

Luis spots him.

“Sit back, Lance,” he says again, sounding tired. Lance beams at him. “I’m not joking!”

“We’ll be there in, like, two seconds!” Lance says. “What did you do over the weekend?”

“Stuff,” Luis says.

Lance frowns.

“I went out! Hung out with dad. Studied. Went to work.”

“Did you go out with your girlfriend?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Do too,” Lance says.

“Lisa,” Marco sighs in sleepy mockery, and slumps back to sleep.

“I’m going to shove him out of the car,” Luis mutters.

The car’s quiet for a moment, but it’s a stifling sort of quiet without their sisters and it makes Lance squirm and rub his fingers idly against the seats. “Luis,” he says eventually. “Can you come see mom next week?”

“I’ll see her,” Luis says.

“I mean,” Lance continues. “Really come spend time with all of us?”

“I’m spending time with you now.”

“We could take the bus,” Lance grumbles. “I like the bus.”

“Yeah, well,” Luis huffs. “I like seeing my little brother.”

“You’ve got two.”

“Between you and me,” Luis says, smiling at Lance over his shoulder as he pulls up in front of Lance’s school. “I prefer you.”

“Fuck off,” Marco grumbles and pulls his hood over his head.

Luis whacks his thigh and Lance pinches his cheek and Lance gets to stumble his way into the building with the sound of his brothers’ laughter and bickering in his ears.

He doesn’t mind the Monday Blues. Blue’s his favourite colour.

 

***

 

He’s earlier than he’d be if he took the bus. Hunk isn’t in their classroom yet and there’s just two girls who aren’t always very nice, hanging out in the corner with a puzzle. They look up long enough to watch Lance pick at his lunch snacks and then Lance ducks out of sight to the classroom’s Book Nook.

He eats his pack of gummies, and the second one his dad had started sneaking into his lunches like he knew Lance ate his snacks too early. He crunches up the wrapping and shoves them in his pockets and shuffles along the bookshelves, humming to himself. On the other side of the bookshelf, the girls laugh together.

Lance doesn’t usually like reading. He likes the stories, and he likes Atlases and comics and he likes it when his parents or his teachers read to him and with him. On his own, though, he gets bored so quickly he sometimes just wants to lay on the floor and groan. But in the mornings, when nobody else has arrived to snatch them up, Lance likes to scurry to the interesting corner of the Nook and grab at the  _ interesting _ books.

“Ah ha!” he whispers and licks some gummy stickiness from his fingers. He crouches and taps at one of the battered, thick books on the shelf.

“This isn’t an Atlas,” Veronica had insisted when Lance had brought one home to show her. “It’s all made up.”

Well. Good stuff tended to be made up.

Lance plops to the floor and drags one of the books off the shelf. It falls open easily on his lap, the pages and the pop-ups creaking and the colours bright enough to make Lance’s smile wide. He plays with the flaps and he flips through the pages and he wonders if his teacher would let him borrow the dragon atlas long enough for him to show it to Keith.

He stays there for a time, hunched over the book and tracing the shape of the pop-up dragons’ wings and wishing he hadn’t eaten his gummies already, and then he hears a halfway familiar voice at the door.

“I think he’s a little nervous.”

“He’ll be alright,” teacher replies in her comforting, high voice. “This is a wonderful group of kids.”

“I’m sure—”

Lance scrambles to his feet and rushes to the other end of the Nook and stands on his toes to peer over the little shelf at the row of cubbies on the other side. Towering above his teacher at the door is Shiro, dressed nicely and smiling wide, and hunched in front of an empty cubbie with his backpack clutched against his chest, is—

“Keith!” Lance yells.

His teacher, Shiro, and Keith all start with a little jerk. Keith drops his backpack.

Lance bets there’s books in there.

He slaps the top of the shelf and beams. “It’s me!”

Keith blinks wide eyes at him, and then scrambles for his backpack, muttering something Lance can’t catch.

“I can’t hear you,” he says.

“Good!”

Shiro takes the three steps to them and smiles down at Lance. He puts his hand on Keith’s head and Keith stills, his eyes all but winding back into his head so he can look up at Shiro.

“Hi Lance,” Shiro says.

“Hi Shiro!”

Keith squirms out from under Shiro’s hand and shoves his backpack in the cubbie, and Lance thinks briefly that he’s going to help Keith decorate his cubbie.

“Keith!” he says.

“Lance,” his teacher admonishes. “Inside voice.”

“Okay, okay!” He hurries around the shelf and under Shiro’s arm to Keith. “Want to see something cool?”

“Uh,” Keith says. “Sure?”

“Good!” Lance ushers Keith back to the Nook. The girls crane their necks over their puzzle, watching them until Lance shoves Keith out of sight in the corner and in front of the still-open atlas.

“Oh,” Keith says, plopping onto his butt and blinking down. “That’s neat.”

“Look at this,” Lance says, kneeling next to him and tugging on a tab. The bright blue dragon in front of them flaps its wings meekly: squeak, squeak, squeak.

“Oh.” Keith shifts restlessly. “That’s neat.”

“Wait ‘til you see the rest of it!”

“You know,” Keith says slowly, and Lance turns the full force of his grin on him. “I don’t actually like dragons that much.”

“Do too,” Lance sighs and nudges Keith until he shuffles over a little more. 

“I’m heading out,” Shiro says, watching them over the shelf. “I’ll see you later?”

“Bye,” Keith says, taking over the flapping of the dragon’s wings. Lance lets him. “This sounds like it’s going to break.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Yeah, it does.”

 

***

 

Hunk finds them and he starts by saying: “Hi Lance.”

And Lance looks up and smiles at him over the collection of atlases—made up and not—spread around him and Keith.

And then Hunk goes on to say: “Who’s that?”

“I’m Keith,” Keith says and goes back to flipping through a book on the ocean. (Lance hasn’t decided if that one’s real or not.) “Who’re you?”

“I’m Hunk,” Hunk replies in his “I’m kind of confused” voice. “What’s going on?”

Lance drags him to the floor and shoves an atlas in his hands.

“Why?” Hunk says. “What are we doing?”

“Reading,” Lance says.

“Playing,” Keith mutters.

“Okay,” Hunk says.

He listens to Keith list facts about squids (half of which may or may not be made up) to Hunk and Lance beams at them both.

 

***

 

“Don’t bring a book,” Lance says at recess.

“What?” Keith says.

“Don’t bring a book!”

“I’ll bring a book if I want to bring a book!”

They wrestle over Keith’s dragon-novel briefly, and then Hunk tugs it away from both of them and shoves it inside his sweater. “Compromise,” he says, very proudly wielding their class’s Word of the Day.

They go outside and climb a tree they’re not supposed to climb. Hunk stays on the ground and flips through Keith’s book. Keith hangs from a branch and yells at him not to lose the page and Lance tries to reach a little higher.

***

At lunch, Lance learns both Keith and Hunk hate bananas.

“You’re both weird,” Lance says and eats the bananas for them.

Keith gags. Lance kicks him under their desks, crowded together.

“At least I tie my shoes,” Keith sniffs.

“My shoes are tied today!”

“His dad’s really good at catching untied shoes,” Hunk says.

“Someone’s gotta be.”

Lance drops both peels in Keith’s lap.

 

***

 

At afternoon recess, Lance tries to show off and do a cartwheel and smushes his face into the dirt.

Hunk panics. Keith wipes the mess off Lance’s face. Lance tries again.

 

***

 

All through the day, Keith shoves his hair out of his face.

“You need a hair tie,” Hunk decides.

Keith shrugs.

“He’s right,” Lance says, and pokes Keith in the side.

Keith scowls.

 

***

 

“When’re you coming home?” Keith asks at the end of the day, smushing his emptied lunch bag into his backpack.

Lance blinks at him.

“He came home yesterday,” Hunk pipes up, coming up behind Keith.

They look at each other.

Lance blinks at both of them.

“Uh,” he says. “I go back to my mom’s next week!”

“Oh,” Keith says.

“Already?” Hunk says, his shoulders slumping.

And Lance frowns.

The three of them wait outside. The bus leaves first. Lance is half-tempted to get on with Hunk but stays on the curb with Keith.

Hunk waves and then crushes them into a warm, teetering hug. Lance laughs. Keith stumbles away, hunching his shoulders.

“Not a hugger,” he mutters.

“Oh,” Hunk says. “Sorry.”

“‘sokay.”

Lance gives Hunk an extra big squeeze and Hunk pushes him away, laughing.

Together, Keith and Lance watch the bus pull away.

“I like your friend,” Keith says eventually.

“He’s your friend, too.”

“Oh.”

They sit down. The end-of-day rush is loud around them, and they shuffle together out of the way of the second-grade triplets when they pile into their dads’ minivan.

“You could be a hugger,” Lance says when the quiet starts to be too much. “You could practice. Hugs are nice.”

“You sound like Adam.”

“I do?”

“A little.”

“Hunk gives great hugs.”

“Yeah.”

“Almost as good as my dad’s.”

Keith doesn’t reply and Lance glances at him. Keith is staring straight ahead, his backpack clutched to his chest and his lips parted slightly.

Lance wants to ask, like he wants to ask Shiro about his scar and his arm, like he wants to ask Isabel about the bags under her eyes, like he wants to ask Luis about the anger that melts off him in waves.

He doesn’t, and he thinks that his dad would be proud to see him not ask.

“Let’s practice,” he says instead, and Keith turns back to him with a frown and a grumble on his lips, but Lance pulls him in for the tightest hug he can muster.

Their backpacks topple over. Keith makes a sound a little like a cartoon bird, and Lance clutches the back of his shirt and rests his chin on Keith’s shoulder.

A car pulls up.

Marco yells: “Lance! Come on!”

Lance untangles himself from Keith and says a quick goodbye. He has to hurry back for his backpack when Marco and Luis shout a reminder, and then he throws himself in the backseat and waves goodbye to Keith.

Keith, his eyes huge and his hair ridiculously messy, waves back.

“New friend?” Luis asks while Lance buckles up.

“Yeah!” Lance straightens to beam at his brothers. Marco is twisted to look back at him, looking rumpled and more awake than usual. “That’s Keith.”

***

 

A few things happen Tuesday morning.

Lance’s father announces Isabel and their mother are coming for dinner and he and Luis have a shouting match that they all pretend not to hear.

Luis and Rachel have an argument that leaves both of them seething and Marco keeps his hand on Luis’s shoulder all the way to Lance’s school, and Lance hugs his brothers tight before he leaves.

Keith and Hunk arrive together, heads bowed and Hunk telling Keith about his neighbour’s dog and Keith listening with a tiny smile.

Lance presents Keith with several hair ties, stolen from his sisters, and then Hunk laughs and does the same. Keith turns bright pink but takes them with a thank you.

And then he hugs Hunk, tight enough to make Hunk say “oof.”

And then he hugs Lance, warm enough to make Lance smile wide and huge.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there’s some feels in this one so heads up that i cried a bit while writing

    It’s a sunny early Spring day and Shiro and Adam keep looking at each other and smiling and saying: “It’s a beautiful day for a wedding.”

    Keith feels both silly and handsome in his new dress shirt and the tie he and Shiro had picked out together. He keeps looking down at his shoes and wiggling his feet and waiting for the shiny black to vanish into his usual sneakers. He thinks he looks a little like Shiro, and a little like Adam, in their neat jackets and their matching ties that just can’t seem to stay straight. He wonders, just for a moment as they step onto the path leading up to the park’s garden, if they look like a family.

    It’s already kind of noisy. He keeps close to Shiro and Adam leads the way and they come to the top of the little hill and Shiro—

    Shiro sighs, big and dreamy.

    “Please don’t say it again,” Keith mutters.

    Shiro pokes his cheek and Keith swats his hand away and Adam says for them all: “It’s a beautiful day for a wedding.” Shiro laughs and kisses him and Keith makes sure they see him roll his eyes.

    Keith admits, silently, that the whole...wedding thing is very pretty. There are pretty white chairs set up in neat rows, and a pretty little thing for Lance’s mom and almost-step-mom to stand on. The flowers of the garden smell nice and add a lot of colour (and bugs) to everything. It looks a little like a movie set, to Keith; like something off of TV or in a book.

    “Keith!”

    He has a split-second to think and whirl around in time to catch Lance, who bursts from the left and launches himself at Keith.

    Sometimes Keith regrets giving in to the touchy-feely people who now occupy his life. Like, when Shiro pulls him in for a surprise and tight hug that reminds Keith too much of what he lost with his father. Like, when Lance swings his arms around Keith’s neck and they fall over and he isn’t sure if they’re fighting or being friendly. Like, when Hunk or Adam crowd close to him and talk quietly like they’re keeping a secret.

    And then there are the other times—more frequent times, as the weeks and the months tick by—when Keith can’t help but return Shiro’s hug with the most valiant squeeze he can muster, or when he catches Lance and they teeter on the grass just before his mother’s wedding.

    “Lance!” Lance’s oldest brother yells from further away. “Don’t make a mess of yourself!”

    Lance releases Keith long enough to turn around and flail his arms in Luis’s general direction.

    Keith straightens his shirt. Adam claps a hand to his shoulder and leans in and says: “Come find us when you’re done.”

    Keith hunches his shoulders and manages not to blush and mutters: “Okay.”

    “You can borrow him,” Shiro says when Lance spins back around, grinning wide and looking unusually tidy.

    “Thanks!” Lance says and tugs Keith away by the hand.

    “Where’re we going?” Keith asks, stumbling along after Lance, who goes along a little too quickly to keep Keith from stumbling.

    Lance doesn’t seem to notice. “Dragonflies!” he says over his shoulder.

    “Hi Keith,” Luis says as they scurry passed him.

    “We’ll be back!” Lance says for the both of them.

    They duck around a table piled high with daisies and sunflowers and the open guest book, where Keith can see Lance has already occupied an entire page with doodles and what looks like a mini-comic of the wedding itself. Their hands are sweaty, clasped like this in the sunshine, and it’s halfway gross but Keith decides not to say anything.

    He doesn’t mind.

    There’s a pond on the other side of a dip and a bunch of bushes of things Keith can’t name, and Hunk is crouched by it, his head in his hands and his jacket tossed aside.

    “They left,” Hunk grumbles. “You took too long!”

    “What!” Lance finally releases Keith’s hand and drops in a crouch next to Hunk.

    “It’s ‘cause you’re so loud!”

    “I’m not loud! I’m excited!”

    “You’re a little loud,” Keith says and squats down on Hunk’s other side. “Hi Hunk.”

    “Hi Keith. Happy Wedding Day.”

    “Is that a thing?”

    “I guess?”

    “There were, like, a million of them!” Lance says, or whines, and drops to his butt on the grass. “Sorry you missed it, Keith.”

    Hunk and Keith make a chorus of displeased noises until Lance groans and wipes the grass off his dress pants.

    “Your mom is going to be really mad if you’re dirty in the photos,” Hunk says.

    “It’s just grass!”

    Keith smiles at the pond when his friends aren’t looking, and a bright red dragonfly flutters over the water—huge and shiny with its wings gleaming in the sunlight.

   

    ***

 

    Regina and Isabel look wonderful in their dresses, all cream and shining in their simplicity. To Keith, they look nothing like brides in a movie, or in a book, or in a magazine. They look like Lance’s family, and they look like the Regina and Isabel Keith has come to know over breakfast and a sleepover, with their wide smiles and their generous words.

    They look happy.

    Lance delivers the rings and smiles brighter than the sun. Hunk, next to Keith, squirms in his seat and nudges Keith and they share a quick smile. Shiro, on Keith’s other side, keeps looking over at Adam and Keith makes a point of not rolling his eyes.

    When the ceremony’s over and Adam’s allowed to sneeze at the flowers again, Lance’s dad is the first one up and he hugs Regina so hard he lifts her off the ground and she laughs so loud the garden seems to ring with it. Luis even shakes Isabel’s hand, though maybe that’s because Lance is looking up at both of them with shining eyes and flailing arms.

    Keith and Hunk don’t see Lance again until the reception, but Keith gets to eat a light lunch with Hunk, while his sister and parents talk to Shiro and Adam. Hunk asks Keith about his book and suffers Keith talking about it and Keith feels strangely blessed by the whole day.

   

    ***

 

    At the reception, Adam and Shiro are disgusting.

    They keep dancing. And smiling at each other. Shiro has, maybe, one glass of wine too many and pulls Keith in for a hug and tells him four times: “I love you, Keith.”

    “You’re not allowed at weddings, anymore,” Keith tries to tell him.

    “You’re a good boy,” Shiro replies.

    “Regina and Alex are amazing humans,” Adam sighs, watching Lance’s parents dance. They’re talking and laughing and looking nothing like what TV has led Keith to believe divorce looks like.

    “You’re an amazing human,” Shiro says.

    “Oh my god,” Keith cuts in, nice and loud. “Just get married already!”

    “I love you, Keith,” Shiro says.

    “Please dance with him again,” Keith begs Adam.

    “I love you, too,” Adam tells him and Keith throws his hands in the air.

    They go eventually and Hunk and Keith go to a table in the corner of the hall, just under some twinkling white lights. Isabel is dancing with Marco now, and they both look a little like they’re crying and maybe that’s because Marco had played something beautiful, with his fingers trembling on his violin, for their first dance and everyone had cried a little.

    Lance is with Luis’s girlfriend, staring down at his feet and talking to the ground so Lisa has to lean down to hear him.

    “I’ve never been to a wedding before,” Keith says to Hunk.

    “Me neither,” Hunk says. “My sister’s getting married, though.”

    “Shiro and Adam are too.”

    “Guess we’ll have to learn how to dance.”

    Keith looks at Hunk, frowning, and then they snicker together and hurry to find more tiny cakes.

    Lance finds them eventually, and his clothes are wrinkly and his hair is wild, but he’s still smiling and his cheeks look round and he just looks happy.

    It makes Keith smile too.

    “I bet we can make them put on the chicken dance,” Lance says, stealing what’s left of Hunk’s dessert.

    “No,” Hunk and Keith tell him together.

    “You guys are boring,” Lance tells them, but he’s still smiling and he crowds onto Keith’s chair so they can lean against each other.

    “You’re heavy,” Keith says quietly.

    “I am not!”

    “Your mom and Isabel look happy,” Hunk pipes up.

    “Yeah,” Lance sighs. “I’ve got a step-mom now.”

    The three of them go outside and count stars and make up constellations and sit on a bench. Lance falls asleep at some point, his head on Keith’s shoulder and his hand still clutched at Hunk’s sleeve. Keith and Hunk go quiet and the three of them just...sit.

    Luis finds them eventually.

    “I don’t think he slept last night,” Luis says and crouches in front of them. “Too excited.”

    “It’s an exciting day,” Keith says, because it feels polite.

    “I guess it is,” Luis replies, and then he shakes Lance awake. “C’mon. Mom and Dad are looking for you.”

    “‘kay,” Lance yawns and slides off the bench.

    “Bye,” Hunk says.

    “Bye,” Keith echoes.

    Lance waves and he and Luis disappear back into the hall.

    “We could go back in,” Keith tells Hunk eventually.

    Hunk shrugs and shuffles over the bench to sit closer to Keith. “I guess.”

    They go back to looking at the stars, and list all the real constellations they can think of.

 

    ***

 

    The day after the wedding, Shiro has a headache. Adam laughs at him but rubs his back and talks quietly and they’re still smiling a lot at each other.

    Keith feels a little strange, watching them. He peeks around the corner into their living room and he tries to think of what family feels like. Probably this, he thinks. Probably quiet voices and gentle mockery and dancing until their feet hurt. Probably the easy way Shiro tells Keith he loves him.

    But he isn’t ready for that, so he tells them he’s going outside and Adam tells him to say hello to Lance and Keith promises he will.

    It’s a sunny morning. He counts his steps to Lance’s front door.

    Veronica answers and drags him inside and Isabel hoists three waffles onto a plate for him. Lance cheers when he sees Keith and drags him into a hug when Keith is halfway done his food, and then he drags Keith outside by the arm and they run to the park, if only so Lance can climb the slide and the monkey bars and the strange ropey structure that Keith likes to read on.

    Keith hasn’t brought a book, so he climbs along the ropes with Lance and they settle together and Keith listens to Lance give him every detail of the wedding preparations, and his pride in looking after the lovely silver rings Isabel and Regina had exchanged, and his predictions for Luis and Lisa’s future.

    “Are they going to go away?” Keith asks eventually. “On a honeymoon?”

    “Yeah,” Lance says, swinging his legs. “When school’s out!”

    Keith has only read about Cuba. He thinks about looking up pictures, or asking Lance, but he feels a little odd about asking Lance about a place Lance knows so well and Keith knows so little of.

    “Oh,” he just says. “Are they going to be gone for a while?”

    “Two months,” Lance replies. “Veronica’s got a science camp she wants to go to, so she’s not going. And Marco’s playing in the youth orchestra all summer, so he’s staying too.”

    “Oh.”

    “And Luis isn’t going because dad says he’s feeling rebellious.”

    “Oh.”

    Lance swings to a lower rung of the structure. It might be a little like a tent. Or a tower. Who knows.

    “Wait,” Keith says, a lightbulb going off. “Are you going?”

    Lance looks up at him, his head tilting. “Uh, yeah! Me and Rachel are going for sure. Dad’s going to come in time for my birthday, too.”

    Keith jumps off the structure and lands on the sand, wobbling. Lance joins him a second later and falls on his butt. He laughs and rolls to his feet.

    “Oh,” Keith says.

    And the laughter dies from Lance’s face as he wipes the sand from his butt and blinks at Keith. “Are you okay?”

    “Yup.”

    “Your face looks weird.”

    Keith scowls. “ _Your_ face looks weird.”

    “Rude!”

    The thing is that Keith knows his face looks weird, and maybe it’s because he realizes he thought he’d have all summer to play with his friends and eat ice cream with them and—

    “I’m going home,” he says, and stumbles out of the sand.

    “Keith?” Lance says to his back.

    “Bye.”

    Lance doesn’t follow, and maybe that’s because Keith starts running.

    Shiro and Adam are still on the couch when he bursts through the door. He kicks off his shoes and he skitters his way into the living room and he looks at Shiro and Adam looking at him and he clenches and unclenches his fists at his sides.

    “Keith?” Adam says.

    “What’s wrong?” Shiro asks.

    Keith opens his mouth, and the first thing that comes out is: “Lance won’t be here for his birthday.”

    Shiro and Adam share a look, and then they shuffle apart.

    “Want to watch a movie?” Shiro asks.

    “I’m going to order a pizza,” Adam adds.

    “‘kay,” Keith mutters and he scrambles over the back of the couch to plop down between them.

    Shiro falls asleep an hour later and Adam puts on _The Godfather_ and he and Keith watch it until the pizza arrives.

   

    ***

 

    “What’s wrong?” Hunk says when he finds Keith on the back of the bus the next morning.

    “What?” Keith says and hugs his knees to his chest and glares out the window. “Nothing.”

    “You’re grumpy.”

    “I am not.”

    “Uh,” Hunk says. “Yeah you are.”

    He drops down next to Keith and the bus rumbles and roars and something bursts in Keith’s stomach so he turns and he says: “Did you know Lance is going away?”

    “Huh?”

    “To Cuba!”

    “Yeah,” Hunk replies slowly. “He goes every year.”

    Keith gapes. “ _Every_ year?” he repeats. “ _Every_ summer?”

    “Yeah.” Hunk looks at him for a long moment, and then he shuffles a little bit closer. “He comes back though, you know.”

    Keith frowns. “That’s good,” he mutters and doesn’t mean it.

   

    ***

 

    Keith sees Lance pop out of the Nook when he and Hunk arrive, and he goes cold all over, so he shoves his backpack in his cubbie and he goes outside before Lance can say “hello.”

    He kicks a stray soccer ball until he feels better.

    Well. Until a teacher comes out and yells at him to get to class.

 

    ***

 

    “Why are you mad?” Lance asks at lunch.

    Keith turns his back to him.

    “Keith,” Lance says.

    “Come on, Keith,” Hunk adds and pokes Keith’s shoulder once.

    “Tell him I’m not mad,” Keith says to Hunk.

    He doesn’t turn around to watch Lance storm away.

 

    ***

 

    Keith has two friends.

    Maybe he’d be okay with one.

 

    ***

 

    He gets onto the bus without saying goodbye and he doesn’t look up when Hunk sits down next to him.

    They don’t talk.

    “You made Lance cry,” Hunk tells him quietly. “Don’t tell him I told you.”

    And when Keith bursts into tears Hunk hugs him, gentle and warm.

 

    ***

 

    He forgets Lance is with his dad this week and goes to Isabel and Regina’s front door.

    “You could call him,” Isabel says. “Do you want the number?”

    “No, thank you,” Keith says.

   

    ***

 

    Adam orders more pizza and lets Keith drink a whole bunch of pop and convinces Shiro to leave him alone.

    Keith doesn’t know how to say “thank you.”   

    He rolls away when Shiro comes to check on him that night and pulls his blanket over his head and eventually Shiro pats his shoulder and leaves. Keith reminds himself that everyone leaves and he’s okay with that.

 

    ***

 

    On the bus the next morning he puts his backpack on the seat next to him. Hunk sighs when he sees and he picks up Keith’s backpack and he sits with it and Keith manages not to cry.

    They make it through the morning, with Hunk going between them. Keith looks at Lance once and Lance stares right back at him and Keith decides not to look at him again.

    They make it through lunch.

    They make it through afternoon reading hour.

    And then at afternoon recess Lance corners Keith outside and shoves him once and when Keith falls over he yells: “I’m really, really mad at you!”

    “Lance—” Hunk starts, but Lance runs and runs until he’s on the opposite side of the field.

    Keith lays back on the ground and looks up at the sky.

    “Keith,” Hunk tries, crouching next to him. “Why are you guys fighting?”

   

    ***

 

    When he gets home, Shiro is waiting for him.

    “Keith,” he says when Keith doesn’t move, clutching his backpack and sweating in his shoes. “Do you want to talk?”

    “No,” Keith mutters.

    “Are you sure?”

    “I miss my dad,” Keith blurts out and immediately regrets it because Shiro’s shoulders drop and he rubs the back of his neck and looks down at his feet.

    But then he says: “I know.”

    And Keith steps out of his shoes and drops his backpack and comes forward to press his face to Shiro’s shirt.

    It’s the tightest hug he’s ever given, probably.

    “I’m here,” Shiro tells him quietly.

 

    ***

 

    He goes to sleep between Shiro and Adam that night and he and Adam make faces at each other when Shiro snores.

 

    ***

 

    He wakes up feeling rested and a little silly.

    “Shiro,” he says, wiggling his toes against the cool kitchen floor. “Can you drive me to school?”

    Shiro doesn’t hesitate to say: “Sure.”

    They don’t talk on the way there. Keith clutches his backpack and feels increasingly sick and wonders if he’s coming down with something. Before he gets out of the car, Shiro taps his shoulder and says: “Tell Lance I said hi.”

    Keith blinks, and then he nods and he gets out of the car and he doesn’t throw up.

    Lance is sitting in the book nook, doodling in his sketchbook. He’s made a mess of his pencil crayons and markers around him, a little barrier that makes Keith think of dragons and castles and moats.

    Lance looks up.

    Lance looks back down.

    Keith sits down in front of him.

    Lance tosses his pencil aside and scoops up a red pencil crayon.

    “Lance,” Keith tries.

    “Go away,” Lance grumbles.

    “I’m sorry.”

    Lance freezes.

    Keith sucks in a breath. “I’m really, really sorry.”

    “I don’t want to talk to you,” Lance says.

    “I know.”

    The pencil crayon scritch-scratches against the page.

    Keith brushes aside some of the markers and scoots closer, settling against next to Lance so their shoulders bump.

    The pencil crayon scritch-scratches a little harder against the page.

    And Keith thinks about saying that he was sad to know Lance was going to go away in the summer, and Keith thinks about saying that he’s sorry he made Lance cry, and Keith thinks about saying that Lance and Hunk are the best friends he’s ever had.

    But instead he reaches for Lance’s left hand, clutching at the edge of the sketchbook. Lance jerks when Keith tugs at his fingers, and freezes when Keith takes his hand and squeezes once, and then he goes back to his drawing and Keith starts to breathe again.

    “Oh,” Hunk says when he finds them, and his relief is loud. “You guys are friends again?”

    “No,” Lance says.

    Keith shrugs.

    He doesn’t let go of Lance’s hand until class starts and he has to.

    At morning recess, he twists their fingers together and Lance scowls but doesn’t pull away. Keith doesn’t let go until he has to.

    And at lunch, Keith shoves a chair next to Lance and holds his hand some more and Lance eats his sandwich and talks to Hunk like Keith isn’t there.

    And at reading hour that afternoon, Keith joins him in the Nook and shoos away a girl and takes her spot next to Lance and holds his hand while they read.

    And at afternoon recess, he holds Lance’s hand and watches the slight tremble of Lance’s lips and they just stand by the fence together.

    Hunk gives them space but he makes sure they know he’s upset by sighing over and over.

   

    ***

 

    “Did you guys make up?” Shiro asks that night when they eat dinner.

    “What?” Adam pipes up.

    “Keith and Lance are fighting.”

    Adam taps his glasses. “I’m not actually blind, Takashi.”

    “We’re not fighting,” Keith says into his spaghetti. “I made him upset.”

    He doesn’t have to look up to know Adam and Shiro are sharing a look.

 

    ***

 

    He takes the bus in the morning. He hugs Hunk when he sits down next to Keith and Hunk says: “Well, that’s nice.”

    Lance greets them when they come into the classroom. “Hi Hunk,” he says. And then, with a weird twitch of his mouth, he adds: “Hi Keith.”

    And Keith smiles so big his face hurts and he grabs Lance’s hand and he says: “Hi.”

    “Are you guys going to talk now?” Hunk whispers.

    “No,” Lance says.

    “Maybe,” Keith corrects.

    And Lance glares at him but he squeezes Keith’s hand and Keith starts to think they’ll be okay.

 

    ***

 

    “You don’t have to keep holding my hand,” Lance says when he comes back to his mom’s that weekend. “I know you’re sorry.”

    “Yeah,” Keith says, but he holds on anyways.

    “I’m gonna come back,” Lance mutters, looking down at their hands. He swings their arms once.

    “Yeah,” Keith says.

 

    ***

 

    Three weeks later, Marco comes to get Lance at the park. They’re sitting on the swings debating whether Godzilla could fight a dragon, and Keith forgets they’re holding hands until Marco crosses his arms and looks down at them.

    “Is this a thing now?” he asks.

    “Is what a thing?” Lance says. “Hey—what if the dragon has three heads?”

    “Isn’t _that_ a thing?” Marco says. “What’s it called?”

    “It’s got a G in it,” Keith mutters and looks down at their hands and smiles.

 

    ***

 

    Everyone gets used to the hand-holding.

   

   


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feels...

Keith rolls over a little after midnight on Canada Day, waking from a dream of fireworks and Lance and his dad’s scrambled eggs. He blinks up at the ceiling and he listens to someone laugh on the street below and he leans up on his elbows.

Hunk snorts next to him, nestled in the blankets they had piled on his bedroom floor.

Keith pokes him once, twice, three times.

Hunk swats his hand away.

“Hunk,” Keith says and scrambles to throw himself over Hunk’s back. Hunk grunts. “Wake up.”

“No!”

“You’re already awake!”

“Get off me!”

Keith stays where he is. “Let’s go outside.”

“No,” Hunk groans.

“Hunk,” Keith says, setting his chin on Hunk’s shoulder with a huff. “Please.”

“Did you just say ‘please?’”

“Maybe.”

“Fine!”

Keith steals one of Hunk’s sweaters and Hunk keeps a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. They sneak down the stairs and out the back door and they find a spot in the moonlight in the yard.

Hunk plops down with more drama than Keith thought he was capable of.

“Middle of the night,” he grumbles.

Keith shakes his shoulder and points up at the sky and says: “Stars.”

“I know where the stars are!”

“You’re a good friend,” Keith says.

Hunk looks at him, and then away, and then huffs and flops back against the grass. “If I get bugs in my hair,” he tells Keith. “You have to dig them out.”

“Deal.” Keith lies back next to Hunk and blinks up at the stars, twinkling against the darkness of the night. The grass is cool and prickly against the back of his neck, and he imagines that there are little bugs crawling along his shoulders and his hands and the tip of his nose. He feels along the grass for Hunk’s hand, poking out of the blanket, and he smiles when Hunk’s fingers meet his partway.

“Remember when you weren’t a hugger?” Hunk whispers.

“No,” Keith replies, and Hunk squeezes his hand.

“Me neither.”

Hunk’s sister finds them in the morning and makes them both shake out their hair and clothes to check for bugs.

 

* * *

 

On a Sunday morning in mid-July, Keith bursts into Adam and Shiro’s bedroom and scares Adam so bad he falls out of the bed. Shiro wakes up long enough to see if he’s okay, and then he groans and starts hiding under the blankets and pillows.

“Lance needs a birthday present,” Keith announces. “For when he comes back.”

“‘kay,” Adam says from the floor.

Keith scrambles onto the bed and peers down at Adam. “Do you want your glasses?”

“No,” Adam grumbles. “I want to sleep in.”

“‘kay,” Keith says. “What kind of present do you think Lance’d like?”

“He’s _your_ friend, Keith.”

“A soccer ball,” Shiro says from under the pillows. “Get him a soccer ball.”

“Does Lance like soccer?” Adam asks as he drags himself back onto the bed, prodding at Keith until he shuffles aside.

“Everyone likes soccer,” Shiro grumbles.

“No soccer ball,” Keith says.

Shiro and Adam wrestle him to the bed and squish him down amongst the pillows and blankets and they go back to sleep while Keith tugs at the duvet cover and tries to think of a good present.

* * *

 

Hunk comes over later that week. He brings puzzles.

“Cool,” Keith says. “What do you think Lance wants for his birthday?”

Hunk, crouched over his backpack, pauses. “Uh,” he says, and pulls another puzzle box out and thrusts it into Keith’s waiting hands. Keith adds it to the pile on the kitchen table. “Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Hunk says and zips his backpack shut. “Why?”

“It’s his birthday!”

Hunk looks thoughtful for a moment, and then he says: “I’m going to bake him a cake.”

Keith stares at him.

“Probably a carrot cake.”

“ _Carrot_ cake?” Keith scoffs.

“Yeah. Want to help?”

“No!”

 

* * *

 

No.

No cake. No soccer ball. No puzzles. No—nothing!

Keith heaves an enormous sigh and presses his face against the counter and watches Shiro watch Adam make lunch. Mac and cheese. Not from a box.

“What’s the crisis, Keith?” Shiro says.

Adam pokes him with the end of a spatula. Shiro ignores this.

“Lance needs a good birthday present,” Keith huffs. He presses his cheek harder against the counter. It’s cool and solid and refreshing on an overheated summer’s day. He wonders what Lance is doing.

“So you’ve said,” Shiro says.

“Help me,” Keith says.

“I cannot,” Shiro sighs. And then to Adam: “Can I help?”

“Absolutely not,” Adam says. “Get Keith a hair tie.”

“Leave me alone!” Keith snaps.

“How are you not dying?” Adam says while he sprinkles breadcrumbs over the mac and cheese and while Shiro looks at him with confusion and awe. “Is your brain melting? Has the sun sucked all the life out of you?”

“We should cover all the windows,” Shiro says thoughtfully.

“My hair is fine,” Keith grumbles.

“You need a haircut,” Adam replies.

“We could keep the sun out,” Shiro continues. “And then, just maybe, we’ll survive the summer.”

 

* * *

 

A week before Lance is supposed to come home, Adam takes Keith and Hunk to the waterpark in the big mall. Hunk, despite the searing heat outside, wants to hang out in the hot tub and play with the kiddie fountains. Keith throws himself into the wave pool, and then into the waves, until Adam is worked up into enough of a panic to wade out after him and drag him back out of the water.

Keith keeps losing his hair tie.

Both Hunk and Adam are prepared for this and take turns slapping extra hair ties into Keith’s waiting hands.

“Haircut,” Adam says. “You need one.”

“No,” Keith says.

“He might be right,” Hunk says when they wander back to the smaller slides. The park is full of noise and bright light and people shrieking as they fly down slides that make Keith tingle all over. He thinks he’s almost convinced Adam to take him and Hunk down the raft slide at the other end of the park.

“What?” Keith says, and kicks idly at a little pool of water. Another group of kids are wrestling and splashing and laughing nearby.

“About the haircut,” Hunk says, knocking their shoulders together. “You can’t even see, sometimes.”

“No,” Keith huffs. “Let’s get hot dogs for lunch.”

“Adam doesn’t eat hot dogs.”

“We do, though.”

“I guess.”

They clamber onto one of the play structures in the pool, slipping and sliding as they go, and Keith smashes both his hands over a spewing spout. The water beats sadly against his palms.

“Maybe later,” Keith allows.

“A late lunch is a sad lunch,” Hunk replies, sounding a little displeased.

“No,” Keith says. He pulls his hands away from the spout and water shoots into the air with gusto, and then back to the relaxed wavering arc from before. Splish-splash into the pools. Someone starts crying further away. Keith lifts his head and watches Adam open the umbrella he smuggled in, and watches Adam hold it gingerly over his book.

“Huh?” Hunk says.

“The haircut,” Keith mumbles. He reaches back to tug at his wet ponytail. “Maybe later.”

“Oh.” Hunk pokes a finger through the little water arc. “Okay.”

Splish-splash.

Maybe, later, Keith could get his hair cut like Shiro’s.

He clambers up and onto the rail of the structure and waves at Adam and his umbrella. “Adam!” he hollers.

Adam looks up from his book, frowning.

“We want hot dogs for lunch!”

Adam frowns some more.

“You can have a carrot!”

There is, maybe, three seconds of Adam considering this before he begins to close his umbrella and tuck his book back into the little bag he’s been hoisting around.

And there is, maybe, one second for Keith to start thinking of an escape route before Adam is splashing through the kiddie pool and straight towards them.

“Don’t run!” Hunk yells when Keith throws himself off the structure and starts splish-splashing away.

Adam catches him. He always does. Keith gets a big pinch to his cheek, but also a hot dog with a heavy coating of mustard and ketchup.

 

* * *

 

 

They go on the raft ride, later. Hunk holds onto Keith and Adam sighs a lot and Keith doesn’t stop smiling.

 

* * *

 

He goes, almost, the whole day without thinking about Lance’s present. He hugs Hunk nice and tight when they drop him off, and he presses his nose to the window to make sure Hunk pitter-patters through his front door. They drive by Lance’s dad’s house and Keith doesn’t even look at it, because Adam is introducing him to audiobooks. Shiro greets them when they get home, and he smiles big even though his eyes are exhausted (and Keith knows how tired Shiro is on his therapy days—).

The three of them have zucchini and cheese and rice for dinner and Keith gobbles it down to try and fill the gaping hole swimming has left in his stomach, and then they finish what’s left of the blueberry pie they’d bought at the market on the weekend. Shiro hands Adam a beer and Adam thanks him with a kiss and then they pile onto the couch to watch _Spirited Away_. And even though Shiro falls asleep within minutes and Adam cries a lot, it’s a nice evening and Keith likes to be settled between them where it’s warm and comfortable and he loves the colours and the fluid movements of the characters on the screen. When the movie’s over, he helps Adam wake Shiro and before bed, Shiro hugs Keith—nice and tight—and says: “I love you, Keith.”

And Keith replies, quiet but sure: “I love you, too.”

He reads until he starts to feel sleepy, until he starts to sag into his comfy bed in his little room. He doesn’t have the words for it, yet, but he doesn’t feel lost anymore; he doesn’t feel lonely. Security is down the hall.

But when he turns off his light and tugs his blankets over his head just to spite the summer heat, when he burrows down against his sheets and his pillow and the books he keeps tucked under it just in case, and when he closes his eyes and huffs out a long breath and thinks he can hear Shiro snoring from down the hall, Keith wonders if Lance has forgotten him.

He opens his eyes. He presses his frown into his pillow.

What makes a good present, Keith wonders. What makes a good friend?

When he finally falls asleep, he dreams of a crashing river and a flimsy boat and Hunk gripping the edges of it and Keith wrestling with a sail and Lance, just behind them both, laughing. When Keith, in his dream, turns to look he can’t see Lance’s face. His grip on the sail, his footing in the boat, slips—and then Hunk crashes into him and steadies him and yells gibberish to the wind, and Lance yells through his laughter: _don’t let go_.

And Keith doesn’t. And the water stills.

And he wakes up in the morning restless.

 

* * *

 

Keith tries to make a list.

He sits with his back against his closed bedroom door and he props open a notebook on his knees and he tries to write something, anything, that Lance might like. He draws four triangles in the margins. He sighs.

He can think of things he likes. Or, things he would like, for when Lance is back.

Keith would like to do a puzzle with Lance and Hunk. Something big. Something messy. Something with missing pieces and confusing colours, so Hunk’s eyes would light up with the challenge and Lance would huff and groan but finish a corner all by himself.

Keith would like to eat eggs with Lance. Hunk likes to watch cooking videos and Keith likes to be with Hunk, and this gives him ideas that make him poke through Shiro’s neglected cookbooks. But there’s nothing better than eggs, to Keith. Nothing better than creamy, delicious eggs that melt in the mouth and fill the belly with a soft kind of warmth he hasn’t felt since—

Keith would like to go to the park with Lance and point up at the sky and say: stars. He thinks it would be different, with Lance. He thinks Lance and Hunk would find each other the next day and shake their heads and say that Keith is odd but they like him all the same.

 

* * *

 

“Lance likes stars,” Keith tells Adam and Shiro, two days before Lance is supposed to come home. “He also likes the ocean.”

“Okay,” Adam says, clutching his coffee mug.

“Can I have some money?” Keith says.

“Sure,” Shiro says, and it’s so natural and easy Keith doesn’t even think about it until later (much later, just suddenly, when he’s agonizing over college choices and panicking at the thought of leaving and realizing loudly and wonderfully that maybe, just maybe, Shiro has been his brother from the start).

“Thank you,” Keith says.

“Wait,” Adam cuts in, and Keith can kind of see the light bulb go off behind his eyes and it makes him nervous.

Nervous.

“Wait?” Shiro echoes.

Keith squints at Adam.

Adam, with a small quirk of his lips, sets his mug down. Keith looks at Shiro. Shiro shrugs.

“I’ll take you to the mall,” Adam says, drumming his fingers against his mug. “And you can buy whatever you’d like for Lance.”

“But?” Shiro says.

“No,” Keith snaps.

“But,” Adam continues, ignoring Keith. “You get a haircut.”

“I don’t want a haircut!”

“Ah,” Adam sighs. “And here I was thinking Lance would be so impressed at your present _and_ your fresh, new look.”

Shiro frowns. Adam looks, pointedly, at the ceiling. He might even be humming.

Keith opens his mouth. Closes it. Considers this.

“Fine,” he says.

* * *

 

“It’s not going to take that long,” Adam says while Keith squirms in his seat and keeps his eyes peeled for the person who is going to take away his hair. “You can stop twitching.”

The shop is a little loud. Several of the chairs are full, which Adam says is “interesting” for a Wednesday. There’s a kid close to Keith’s age babbling away to what looks like his dad.

Keith swings his legs and tucks his hands under his thighs and huffs, once.

“I’m not evil _or_ crazy,” Adam continues. He might be feeling guilty. Keith is too distracted to make anything of that. “You can grow it out again, but you’ve got to keep it manageable. Do you know what I mean?”

“No,” Keith says.

“Also think of all the time you’ll save when you don’t have to brush it.”

“I don’t brush it.”

“Yes,” Adam says thoughtfully. “I know.”

Keith looks up at him. Adam gives him a small smile.

“Lance will like it,” Adam adds.

Keith squints at him. “This is manipulation,” he mutters.

“You read too many books,” Adam replies, but he looks pleased. Maybe proud. “Yeah, maybe it is. Just go with me on this, okay?”

Keith swallows. Adam smiles at him some more, but it isn’t comforting. It isn’t anything. It just makes Keith think about dreaming, and Hunk baking a cake, and Lance hugging them both goodbye the day before he’d left, and—

“What if he doesn’t recognize me?” Keith blurts.

Adam blinks.

Keith flushes, and looks back down at his feet.

“Lance?” Adam says.

Keith forgets how to speak, how to think. He studies his shoe laces and he wiggles his toes just to remind himself that he’s still alive, and he’s still here, and he’s still breathing.

Yes, Lance.

But also—

Adam understands, in that Adam way of his.

He slips his arm around Keith and pulls Keith against his side and he says, softly: “It doesn’t matter how much you grow, or how you wear your hair, or where you go: you’ll always be yourself, Keith.”

“I guess,” Keith says.

“And everyone who loves you will see you,” Adam continues, squeezing Keith’s shoulder. “And everyone who loves you will know you.”

It takes a moment.

It takes focus.

But then, he believes it.

And, quiet but sure, Keith says: “Okay.”

Adam squeezes his shoulder again and nudges his chin against Keith’s hair and they sit like that for a moment, until Keith can finally look away from his shoelaces. “You’re still getting your hair cut,” Adam mutters and Keith makes sure no one sees his smile.

 

* * *

 

The morning of the day before he lost his dad, they eat breakfast together and go for a walk so long Keith’s toes start to hurt. “You might need a trim,” his dad, his voice humming, and in Keith’s memories he bats away his dad’s hands and they laugh together at something half-heard and then they go home.

 

* * *

 

Keith’s head feels light and cool. Maybe cold, with the air conditioning in the mall. He keeps rubbing his hands over the soft, new length of his hair, and Adam sighs only three times at this. They get hamburgers for lunch— well, Keith does; Adam gets a fake hamburger that makes him sigh a very different sigh.

“So good,” Adam mumbles to his lunch.

“You’re weird,” Keith tells him.

Adam shrugs. This isn’t news to him.

It takes hunting, after that, to find what Keith needs. He has half an idea. He finds a nice bag at the bookstore, and pretty dark blue tissue paper to fill it with. He finds the whale at a toy shop that gives Adam a headache: it’s soft, and fluffy, and it’s eyes seem to blink; it’s white and long and looks ready to swim out of Keith’s hands. He can see Lance hugging it tight.

And then he finds the little map in a bustling shop that shrieks “SCIENCE” at them at every turn. Glow-in-the-dark stars gleam above, and there’s a huge Lego space shuttle hanging from the roof. Adam takes pictures for Shiro, and Keith peers through the shelves until he finds what he needs: cardboard, and round, and blue and white. It lays out the seasons in simple lettering, lets Keith lift it and lay it across his vision of the ceiling. And the cardboard disc of the constellations spins and lets him study the stars until he thinks he sees nothing but—

“Got it,” he tells Adam, lowering the map. Adam turns away from a rock collection, his smile light on his lips.

“Do you want to find a card for him?” Adam asks..

“I don’t know,” Keith says.

“We’ll figure that out later,” Adam says with a wave of his hand. He plucks the map from Keith’s hands and he smiles and he smiles and it makes Keith feel like he’s doing something right.

 

* * *

 

Shiro keeps a stack of blank cards in the living room, for emergencies. Watercolour flowers and splashes of blue and pink and green smile up at Keith as he shuffles through them. Adam reads on the couch behind him and Shiro has a quiet conversation on the phone in the kitchen, and outside it’s drizzling. Keith keeps looking up from the cards to listen to the rain when it hits the windows, or maybe just to distract himself from having to pick.

“No luck?” Adam asks. Keith glances back at him. Adam flips his page.

“I don’t know,” Keith mutters. “I’m going to go upstairs.”

“Okay.” Adam taps his fingers against his book, and then adds: “I’ve got something for you. I’ll come up later?”

“Okay,” Keith says.

He gathers up the cards he likes best (though “like” feels like an exaggeration) and he peers into the kitchen as he passes and watches Shiro pace for a moment and then he dashes up the stairs and hurries into his room.

He lays the cards on the floor. He studies them.

He sits down among them and sighs.

He gets up and digs his pencil case, covered in dinosaurs, out from the mess on his bed (piled clothes and books and stray socks and paper that he’ll shove to the floor when he’s ready for sleep). He shakes it experimentally, considers the collection of cards again, and then sits and grabs the nearest.

He starts in blue, pulled haphazardly from his bag, and writes in a card covered with watercolour flowers: _Dear Lance, I hope you had a fun vacation. I missed you a lot. Hunk’s making you a cake_ —

Keith frowns. He looks down at his own uneven handwriting and his frown becomes a scowl and his cheeks start to heat so he tosses the card over his shoulder and ignores the sad way it flutters to the floor.

He grabs another: stripes in blue and green, like imaginary sunlight. He writes: _Happy birthday Lance. I had a busy summer without you. Me and Hunk went to the waterpark, once, and we stayed up late on Canada Day. Shiro made pancakes that were not bad. I saw Marco a couple of times and he looked very tired_ —

“Ugh!” Keith says to the card and tosses it across the room.

He tries again. And again. And again.

 _Lance, I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a hug on your birthday. I read a lot about Cuba but I don’t think I remembered very much_ —

 _Happy birthday, Lance! Things are going to be much better when you’re back. I hope you like the whale_ —

 _Dear Lance, you and Hunk are the best friends I’ve ever had and I’d really like it if you don’t forget who I am but I guess if you do that’d be okay because I can just tell you who I am again and maybe you’d still be my friend anyways_ —

 _Lance I missed you a lot and I cut my hair but I’m still me. Your hands are nice to hold and I like the way you laugh, even if you’re kind of loud sometimes. I know you like the stars. I like them, too. I’ve never seen the ocean, but I like the way you talk about it. Let’s go look at the stars, when you’re back_ —

The door opens behind him.

Keith drops the card. Gapes down at his handwriting, at the way it seems to get smaller and smaller down the little page of the card. He shoves it off his lap and tosses the marker at his bed and thinks about pinching his own cheeks until they stop being so—warm.

“Having fun?” Adam says, crouching next to him. He pokes at a stray card but doesn’t open it and Keith’s relief makes him feel like laying on the floor and groaning. “Don’t waste all of Shiro’s cards.”

“It’s not a waste,” Keith mutters.

“No,” Adam agrees, his voice soft like earlier. “It’s not.”

“I don’t think he needs a card,” Keith decides. He hugs his knees. “I’ll just tell him with my voice or something.”

“Or something,” Adam echoes. “Okay. Would you like to see what I got for you?”

Keith looks up at him, and Adam lifts and shakes a pack of glow-in-the-dark stars.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s hard to fall asleep.

He keeps opening his eyes and looking up at the constellations he and Adam and Shiro had stuck all over his ceiling, and he keeps smiling up at them and feeling full and warm and pleased. He thinks this is the sort of happiness that belongs in a book, and he tries to shove away the voice at the back of his head that warns that this can’t last, that stories always end.

But the stars outshine his fears.

 

* * *

 

 

And he keeps the cards in the little box of keepsakes he keeps in the corner of his closet, near photos of his dad and letters between his parents and the stuffed red lion he’d had as a baby, and he forgets them for a long, long time.

 

* * *

 

Keith doesn’t see Lance the day he comes back.

Hunk calls to tell him not to worry and he’ll see Lance, soon.

“I’m not worried,” Keith says into the phone gruffly.

“Liar,” Hunk replies and hangs up.

Keith grumbles his offense at the wall for, maybe, an hour, until Shiro loops his arm around Keith and drags him away to kick at a soccer ball (“I don’t like soccer!” “Liar.”).

The next day is the first of August.

The doorbell rings in the morning. Keith ignores it in favour of hiding his head under his pillow. But then there’s a rumble and grumble of steps in the hall and his bedroom door bursts open and Keith shrieks, just a little, when someone leaps onto his bed and on top of _him_.

“Wake up!” Lance yells, pulling the pillow off Keith’s head. “It’s morning!”

Keith twists around as much as he can and gapes up at Lance’s beaming face and his full cheeks and his bright eyes, and then he comes to his senses and bucks Lance off the bed.

Lance topples to the ground with a thunk, laughing the whole way. Keith throws his pillow at him. Lance catches it.

They look at each other, for a quiet moment. Keith clutches at his sheets and remembers to breathe.

“Hi,” Lance says. “Can you get up now?”

Keith isn’t sure he can. He stares, and he stares, and he stares, and he wonders if this is really _his_ Lance, sitting on his bedroom floor and looking up at him with those big blue eyes of his.

“Oh my god,” Lance says and rolls his eyes. “Close your mouth, at least!”

Keith does.

Lance throws back his head and laughs, like he’s just happy to be alive and breathing.

And, finally, Keith drags himself out of bed and stands on his unsteady feet, his toes curling into the carpet. Lance is still on the floor, his legs spread and his elbows holding him up, and he is still smiling and it feels like he’s still laughing, even now that he’s silent.

“Lance,” Keith says, his mouth dry. “Stand up.”

Lance scrambles to his feet, his smile growing as he goes, and then they’re standing just barely eye-to-eye. Keith could reach out and touch Lance, if he wants to.

He wants to.

He barrels into Lance with more strength than he knew he had, and Lance catches him and hugs him, nice and tight, and Keith presses his face to Lance’s shoulder just to hide his smile.

“I missed you,” Lance sighs without letting go.

“I have a present for you,” Keith mutters instead of: I missed you, too.

 

* * *

 

Lance talks.

And talks.

And talks.

And Keith is just happy to listen.

Lance talks about the flights and his grandma and the way it felt like he had watched his mother and Isabel get married again and again. He talks about his dad and Isabel beating everyone at charades, and he talks about one of his cousin’s puppy, and he talks about trying to lift Rachel over his head and failing miserably so they were both bruised. He talks about kicking his feet in the sea and making dinner with his parents and feeling huge and happy on his birthday.

He talks while Keith brushes his teeth, and he covers his eyes and keeps talking while Keith changes for the day, and he talks as they help Adam make waffles and fry up some eggs and sausages.

Keith has been listening to Lance talk for more than hour, just looking at his face and reveling in the sound of his voice and laughing when Lance needs him to laugh and scowling when Lance expects him to scowl, when he finally notices.

And he drops his fork to his plate with a clatter and stares across the table at Lance.

“Your hair!” he says. “It’s short!”

Lance freezes, and then he flushes, and he hunches his shoulders and rubs a hand over his head and gives Keith a shaky smile and starts to say: “Yeah, my dad won, but—” And then he stops and he stares back at Keith and he straightens suddenly and he gasps: “ _Your_ hair!”

Adam and Shiro nibble at their breakfasts and watch them.

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you like soccer?” Shiro asks Lance, but he isn’t very sneaky so Keith makes sure Shiro watches him roll his eyes.

“Oh, yeah!” Lance replies with an excited wave of his arms. “Everyone likes soccer!”

Shiro beams.

 

* * *

 

Hunk comes over with his cake and the three of them are, generally, loud.

Lance loves his present, and squeezes Keith’s hand and points at the evening sky and says: “Stars.”


	5. Chapter 5

One accidental sleepover in early October, Shiro wakes Lance and Keith and convinces them to leave the floor of the living room and come eat breakfast in the kitchen.

“McDonald’s,” Keith observes, sniffing.

“Don’t tell on me,” Shiro tells them both with a wink.

Lance grins and wipes the rest of his sleep from his eyes. Keith stumbles to his feet first and stretches and Shiro leaves them. Lance unwraps himself from the blankets and Keith holds out his hand and Lance takes it, quickly and cheerfully. Keith’s hand is warm, and soft; smaller than Lance’s but steady like Lance’s dad’s. Keith leads the way to the kitchen, tugging Lance gently along and Lance is content, for now, to be pulled towards breakfast.

“I thought Adam doesn’t want Shiro eating McDonald’s,” Lance whispers to Keith, crowding close to lean near his ear.

Keith shushes him, smiling wide.

They watch Shiro cram a hashbrown into his mouth and then they hurry forward, together, and snatch up a sandwich each. They have to let go before they sit with their breakfasts, but Keith gives Lance’s hand a firm, sweet squeeze and Lance makes sure Keith sees his smile.

“I told your mom you’d be home after you eat,” Shiro says, squinting at his hashbrown wrapper like another would appear if he wished it.

“Okay,” Lance says. And then, to make his parents and Isabel proud, he adds: “Thank you for having me.”

Shiro looks up. He smiles. “Anytime, Lance.”

Lance thinks he means it.

“When’s Adam back?” Keith asks and takes an enormous bite of his sandwiches. He gets some egg on his cheek and Lance snickers.

“He lands at eleven,” Shiro replies. “We’ll go get him.”

“Good,” Keith says, very seriously.

Lance nibbles at his sandwich and watches Keith eat and watches Shiro watch Keith. There’s a nice sort of quiet in the kitchen, with the Sunday morning light and the smell of a fast food breakfast. It matches the slow peace of waking up in a pile of blankets on the floor—Keith close enough that Lance could feel him breathing—with birds chirping outside the windows and a fall breeze making leaves dance on the street.

Shiro drums his fingers against the table. Keith chews. Lance keeps smiling.

“Lance,” Shiro says suddenly. “Are you busy next weekend?”

“No,” Lance says. “I think.”

“Lance is at his dad’s next weekend,” Keith says, putting down his sandwich and scowling at Shiro with greasy lips.

Lance takes a proper bite of his breakfast.

“He comes back on Sunday.”

“So what!”

Shiro rolls his eyes. “Lance,” he says again. “Did you know next weekend is Keith’s birthday?”

Keith balls up his sandwich wrapper and throws it at Shiro. It bounces off Shiro’s chest pathetically.

“What,” Lance says. He swallows.

Keith crams the rest of his sandwich in his mouth and hops off his chair. He says something around the food in his mouth that makes Shiro sigh and Lance grimace.

“It’s your birthday next week?” Lance says.

“No,” Keith says.

“He’s lying,” Shiro says.

Like Lance hadn’t figured that out.

“Time for Lance to go home!” Keith announces, and tugs Lance out of his chair. “I’ll be right back!”

Shiro shakes his head.

Lance clutches his breakfast and follows Keith down the hall and out the door. Keith wipes at his face with his sweater sleeve and Lance frowns.

And frowns.

“Keith,” he says. “It’s your birthday.”

“Not yet.”

“Keith,” Lance says again and stops in the middle of the sidewalk. He holds onto the sandwich and he hunches his shoulders and tries to look as big as he can.

And Keith turns around two steps later, blinks, and takes the two steps back to Lance.

And maybe that’s the first time Lance thinks: Keith won’t leave me behind. Thinking it feels a little like holding hands, a little like waking up in the car with one of his brothers driving, a little like wrestling in the snow with Rachel.

“Shiro wants to have a party,” Keith grumbles and rocks on his feet. He looks away and then back at Lance and then at his feet, like he’s restless or tired or both.

“For your birthday!”

“I don’t want a party,” Keith says, maybe whines. “I want to go to the bookstore with the cats—”

“The Book House?”

“Yeah, that one. And then I want to do homework and go to sleep.”

“What day’s your birthday?”

“Secret.”

Lance scowls.

Keith shrinks, a little. “Sunday.”

“Sunday’s a great day for a party!”

“No way,” Keith huffs. “Can we stop talking about it?”

“No.”

“Yes,” Keith insists and he grabs Lance by the elbow and starts tugging him down the street and maybe that’s the second time Lance thinks: Keith won’t leave me behind.

“Did you tell Hunk?”

“No.”

“Did you tell anybody?”

“I didn’t even tell Shiro! He just _knows_.”

“Keith!” Lance drags his feet and pulls his arm out of Keith’s hold and musters up his best glare. “You can’t skip your birthday!”

“I’m not skipping it!” Keith crosses his arms and kicks at the sidewalk. His hair’s growing faster than Lance’s, coming in all thick and dark and fluffy, and it’s sticking out in odd directions after their night on the floor. “I’m going to the bookstore with Adam and I’m going to say hello to the cats and then I’m going to ask Shiro for a pizza! Done. Birthday complete.”

“And me?” Lance snaps. “What’re you going to do with me?”

Keith squints at him.

“Hunk’s going to want to do something with you, too.”

“Don’t tell him.”

“I’m going to tell him!”

“Lance,” Keith groans. “Please.”

Lance wants to keep pressing it. He wants to yell, kind of, and he wants to butt his head against Keith’s shoulder until Keith listens to reason. He wants to explain the importance of celebration, and he kind of wants to say that he missed Hunk and Keith on _his_ birthday: their smiles and their laughter and the knowledge that they would hug him tight and say _happy birthday, Lance_!

“Fine,” he says instead and stomps past Keith.

“Don’t be mad,” Keith says to his back, hurrying to keep up.

“Fine.”

“You’re mad.”

Lance takes a bite of the sandwich, chews the cooling sausage patty and strangely slippery eggs and the crunchy english muffin. He reconstructs the sandwich in his head instead of listening to Keith sigh at his back.

“Can we just pretend I don’t have a birthday?”

Lance grunts.

Keith follows him the rest of the way home and Keith says a very polite “hello” to Isabel, who greets them at the front door, and then Keith pats Lance’s shoulder and says a very quiet “see you tomorrow,” and then Keith leaves.

Lance finishes the sandwich, hunched by the door.

“Lance?” Isabel says. “Are you okay?”

Lance crumples up the yellow wrapper and rubs the rough edges of it against his cheek. Isabel snatches it away.

“Lance,” she says again.

“Keith doesn’t want me around for his birthday,” Lance grumbles.

“Oh,” Isabel starts, and there’s that soft, sad sound to her voice that Lance usually appreciates and likes to burrow into, but he pulls away and opens the door and leans outside to watch Keith’s retreating back.

He watches Keith scuff his sneakers against the sidewalk. He watches Keith scratch his head.

He looks very small, to Lance. He thinks, not for the last time, that maybe he and Keith see the space between them very differently.

* * *

 

Last night, Lance had woken to the sound of a car screeching through the neighbourhood. The TV had still been on, playing through a late night documentary. Lance had propped himself up on his elbows and watched a bird fly through a clear blue sky, while a man narrated its journey in a soft voice that sounded alien to Lance’s ears. He hadn’t known what time it was, he hadn’t known when he had fallen asleep.

Perhaps he should have gone home, but it was late and dark and comfortable on the floor of Shiro and Adam’s living room.

Perhaps he should have woken Keith, so they could watch the bird fly together, but the room was peaceful and warm.

So Lance had turned off the TV and burrowed down into the blankets they had piled on the floor, burrowed down amongst the pillows they had stolen from the couch, and burrowed down close enough to see that Keith was watching him with his dark eyes blinking.

Lance had decided not to say anything. He had rolled onto his side and tucked his hands under his head and smiled at Keith, and Keith had tugged a blanket over them both.

And they had gone back to sleep.

* * *

 

“What’s wrong?” Luis asks after dinner while he and Lance do the dishes together.

“Nothing,” Lance says.

Luis nudges him.

“Nothing!”

Luis hums and plunges his hands back into the soapy sink. Lance dries a fork with, perhaps, more force than he really needs.

“Dad says you had a fun sleepover last night.”

A fun sleepover! Luis says it like Lance is a baby, like he doesn’t know what his brother is doing.

“Yup,” Lance grumbles.

“Come on, Lance.”

“Come on what?”

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

Lance tosses the dry fork onto the counter and holds out his hand for the next dish. Luis hands him a bowl.

“Birthdays,” Lance says.

“Birthdays?”

“That’s what I said.”

Luis stills again. “Are you fighting with your friend?”

“His name is Keith,” Lance says, not for the first time and not for the last. “And we’re not fighting.”

“Uh huh.”

“We’re not!”

“Then why are you upset?”

“Maybe because you stay here all the time,” Lance snaps before he can think better of it. “Maybe because you’re always mean to Isabel. Maybe because you can’t even learn my friend’s name because you’re never around to meet him when we’re at mom’s.”

There’s a pause.

Luis breathes.

Lance puts the bowl on the counter, very slowly.

“I can finish,” Luis says.

“Okay,” Lance mumbles and leaves the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t mean any of it.

Luis hasn’t been mean to Isabel in weeks. Luis is trying.

Lisa’s a good influence.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance finds Luis, before bed, sitting on the couch with a highlighter cap in his mouth and a tired sag to his eyes. Lance clambers onto the couch next to him and hugs his knees.

“Luis,” he says quietly.

“Hey,” Luis says without looking up from his battered textbook and his disorganized notes.

“‘m sorry.”

“I know.”

Lance drags his teeth against one of his knees, feels the pull of the fabric of his sleep pants. He shuffles a little closer. Luis lets the highlighter cap fall from his mouth and tucks an arm around Lance. Lance suffers it.

“You should go to bed,” Luis says.

“Maybe.”

“Not maybe.” Luis squeezes one of Lance’s shoulders. “Go to bed.”

Lance huffs. “ _You_ should go to bed.”

“Soon.”

“Luis,” Lance says, then, deciding in the moment.

“Uh huh?”

“Keith didn’t want me to know his birthday.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Lance grumbles. “And he doesn’t want a party.”

“Not everyone likes parties.”

“Birthdays are different, though.”

“Sometimes,” Luis allows. “For some people. Have you tried asking your friend why he doesn’t want a party?”

“No.”

“That might be a good place to start.”

Maybe.

 

* * *

 

Their new classroom lacks a Book Nook. Lance had petitioned their teacher—looming, balding, always cheerful Mr. Scalzi—but Mr. S had just smiled and said that the whole room could be a Book Nook.

Maybe that’s true. Almost every available wall-spot has a bookshelf, loaded with books and puzzles and games. The three computers at the back of the room have towering shelves between them, and Mr. S’s desk is surrounded by short, stubby shelves. A nook to Lance, however, needs to be somewhere someone could hide. A quiet place. A comfy space.

He misses the Nook, Monday morning.

“Good morning, Lance,” Mr. S says when Lance scuttles through the door.

“Good morning,” Lance mumbles.

“Everything good?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Ah. Good luck.”

Lance sits at his desk and eats an apple. He tosses the core into the compost bin in the hall and he comes back and he studies the sun outside the windows. Mr. S is typing away at his computer, making thoughtful clicking sounds with his mouth.

Lance returns to his desk and flips open his sketchbook and fiddles with his pencil crayons. He starts a border design in red: squiggly and uneven and smudged when his hand drags against the page. He adds more squiggles in black, and then in blue because most things should have blue in them. And in blue he begins by writing: Happy birthday, Keith.

He hates the way Keith’s name looks in his own sloppy, sideways printing. He scribbles over the words in blue and skips to a blank page at the back of his sketchbook. He practices: K, K, K, K, K, K. And then: e, e, e, e, e, e.

By the time Hunk and Keith arrive, trailing in with most of the rest of the class, Lance is satisfied with his i’s and is starting to feel okay with his t’s.

He closes his sketchbook.

Hunk waves. Keith blinks at him and then hunches his shoulders.

Lance winds his way through the desks to come closer to them, so he can watch them put their stuff into their cubbies and watch Keith check his latest novel to make sure he hasn’t lost his place and watch Hunk straighten his outside shoes.

“Hi guys,” Lance says, tucking his hands behind his back.

“Good morning,” Hunk says, beaming.

“‘Morning,” Keith mumbles into his cubbie.

Lance takes a deep breath and then pokes Keith, hard, in the ribs.

“Ow!”

It gets Keith to look at him, so Lance smiles.

“I’m not mad at you,” he says. “I’m sorry for not understanding.”

“Oh,” Keith says, and his relief is wonderful to watch: the careful way he straightens and the slow way his shoulders settle. “I’m not mad at you either.”

“Good.”

Hunk looks between them. “Are you guys going to hold hands now?”

“Yes,” Keith says quickly.

Lance snickers.

“You guys are so weird,” Hunk mutters but he pulls Lance in for a ‘good morning!’ hug and Lance melts, a little, into it. Keith grabs his hand when Hunk lets go and they wander to the back corner, where Mr. S’s dinosaur figurines bathe in the morning sunlight and their classroom fish gurgle.

 

* * *

 

Tuesday night, Lance sits on his bed with his whale and his pencil crayons laid out next to him and his sketchbook open on his sheets. Veronica peeks into the room just as he starts to chew on his fingers.

“Don’t do that,” she scolds.

Lance gnaws a little harder at his hands.

Veronica rolls her eyes and slides into Lance’s little bedroom. “What are you up to?”

“Working on a present for Keith.”

“Yeah?”

Lance points with his whale at his sketchbook. Veronica leans over to see and Lance watches her eyes trace the busy border of stars and birds and blue and red and black. In one corner, Lance has drawn a whale that grins toothily up; in another, Lance has started a doodle of Adam and Shiro waving. He doesn’t know, yet, what he’ll put in the other two. He’s smeared his messy blue mistake from Monday morning so it looks bright and intentional, like a clear blue sky.

“He’ll like that,” Veronica says after a moment.

Lance scoffs. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” Veronica insists with a wave of her hand. She hops onto Lance’s bed and tugs his whale from his hands so she can rub idly at its tail. “Luis said Keith’s birthday was coming up.”

“Why’s he talking about it!”

“He’s a gossip,” Veronica sighs.

Lance laughs.

 

* * *

 

“Keith,” Lance says at afternoon recess on Wednesday while they’re lying on the grass and staring up at the sky. The grass is dead, mostly. The leaves are changed, mostly. The sky is clear, mostly.

Hunk is panicking a little, Lance can hear it: he’s still in the game, running to avoid being tagged out like Keith and Lance. Lance knows Hunk just doesn’t want to lay down on the ground.

Keith’s fingers brush Lance’s thumb. “Yeah?”

“Why don’t you want to do anything for your birthday?”

Keith is quiet for a moment. Annie W. shrieks a little further away, caught.

“I want to go the bookstore,” Keith says. “I want to eat pizza. Isn’t that enough?”

“I guess,” Lance says. “What about cake?”

“Oh. I guess cake would be good, too. But I don’t need it.”

“It’s not about _need_ , Keith! It’s your birthday!”

“I know. That’s why I want to go to the bookstore.”

“Do you want a birthday hug?” Lance asks.

“Probably. Shiro’s going to give me one, I know it.”

“What about from me?” Lance presses. “What about a big, huge, ginormous birthday hug from me?”

“Birthday?” Hunk wheezes and collapses onto his stomach on Lance’s other side. “Whose birthday?”

“Keith,” Lance replies.

“Lance!” Keith scolds.

Lance shrugs. A cloud, wispy and thin, drifts overhead.

“It’s your birthday!” Hunk squawks.

“No! Not until Sunday!”

“What! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Do I have to?”

“Yeah!”

Lance listens to his friends bicker and smiles. They ignore the call to arms when the next round of Tag begins and stay on the grass, Hunk and Keith arguing about the merits of ice cream cake versus carrot cake. When recess is over and Keith is pulling Lance up by the hand and Hunk is shaking dry grass out of his shirt, Keith tangles his fingers with Lance’s in a sweaty, comfortable hold and says: “I’ll always take a hug from you.”

He grumbles it. He looks a little annoyed at his own voice.

Lance thinks about flying.

 

* * *

 

Thursday night, Keith calls.

“Lance,” Lance’s father says while Lance is watching TV with his sisters. He waves the phone. “It’s your friend.”

Lance knows it’s Keith, then, and he scrambles off the couch and leaps to snatch the phone from his father.

“Hello!”

“Hi Lance,” Keith says, his voice crackling. He breathes and that crackles, too.

“Hiya Keith.”

Keith doesn’t say anything for a moment. Lance thinks he can hear him frowning.

In the background, Shiro says something and Keith groans.

“Do you want me to do it?” comes Adam’s voice, loud and clear.

“I can do it!”

“I don’t get what the problem is,” Adam grumbles. Shiro says something else. “Fine, fine,” Adam says and he sounds further away now.

“What’s going on?” Lance asks, rocking on his feet.

“Would you please come over on Sunday and eat birthday pizza with me?” Keith blurts in a rush.

Lance cheers so loud Keith hangs up.

“Dad!” Lance hollers. “How do I call back!”

“Don’t yell into the phone and people won’t hang up on you,” his father sighs.

 

* * *

 

Friday morning, Hunk basically hangs off Keith like a coat. “My mom says I can come on Sunday,” Hunk says by way of explanation. He lets go of Keith long enough to high-five Lance.

Keith sighs.

“Don’t you want us there?” Lance asks, poking at Keith’s shoulder.

“That’s why I asked!” Keith hunches in Hunk’s arms. “I didn’t think you’d yell!”

Lance grins. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“You are not.”

Lance grins some more.

“I’ll make a cake,” Hunk decides. Announces. Sighs.

“No cake!”

Hunk and Lance share a look.

“No cake,” Keith says again, scowling. “We’re eating pizza and we can watch a movie!”

“Yeah right,” Lance says. “You’re going to be too busy with your birthday books.”

“They’re going to be regular books!”

 

* * *

 

Isabel and Lance’s mother and Lisa all come for dinner on Friday. Lance’s dad’s new girlfriend, who none of them have laid eyes on yet, can’t make it.

“He’s hiding her from us,” Isabel stage-whispers to Lance.

Lance laughs. He misses Isabel as much as he misses his dad, when they’re apart. He finds it hard to take his eyes off her: is she wearing a new lipstick? Has she been sleeping enough? Is she excited for Halloween?

The nine of them pile into the living room and Marco and Rachel fight over the last spring roll and Lance’s parents gossip in the corner. Lisa and Luis join Isabel and Lance on the couch under the window and this makes Lance beam, makes his smile so huge he’s certain his face is going to split open. Isabel eats his steamed broccoli and Lance gets her mushrooms. Lisa and Luis share a pop and it’s gross but also kind of cute.

“I hear it’s Keith’s birthday this weekend,” Isabel says while Lance shovels fried rice into his mouth.

“Did you think of a good present for him?” Lisa asks.

Lance nods.

“Is Hunk baking him a cake?”

Lance shakes his head. He swallows. “Keith says he doesn’t want a cake.”

Luis perks up at this, frowning. “He doesn’t want a cake?”

“I think,” Isabel clarifies. “Keith doesn’t want a fuss.”

Lance looks at her. “You’ve been talking to Shiro.”

“He lives down the street.”

“He’s eight,” Luis says. “Of course he wants a fuss.”

“He’s going to be nine,” Lance says, and Lisa smiles down at him. Lance, feeling a little sheepish, shoves his face back into his rice.

“He’s been through a lot,” Isabel says over Lance’s head, like _that’s_ an explanation.

“Too much for cake?”

Isabel makes a soft sound like she agrees but can’t say so, just in case Lance’s mom hears her. Lance eats another spoonful of rice and shuffles back against the couch and looks between his step-mother and his eldest brother and he wonders, briefly, if they’ve ever really talked like this, with all the family around them and nobody but Lance and Lisa to keep on them to make sure nobody cries or slams a door. Lisa catches Lance’s eye and winks, the wild bob of her hair bouncing with the nod of her head, and Isabel and Luis begin to conspire.

“Every kid needs a birthday cake at some point,” Luis grumbles.

“I’m sure he’s had a birthday cake,” Isabel allows light and snatches another broccoli floret from Lance’s plate. “He’s just told his guardians he doesn’t want one this weekend.”

“And they’re okay with that?”

“They’re well-meaning boys.” Isabel pauses. “Men. They try to give Keith his space.”

“Nobody gets space on their birthday,” Luis continues. “Last year we draped Marco in dollar-store streamers.”

“Is there any other kind?”

Luis considers this. “No.”

“It was pretty good,” Lance says to Lisa. “Marco was a little mad.”

“Luis has shown me pictures,” Lisa replies quietly.

“Lance,” Luis says while Isabel eats her pilfered broccoli. He waves his chopsticks in Lance’s direction. “What does your friend like?”

“Dragons,” Lance replies immediately. “He’ll tell you he doesn’t but why else would he read, like, a million books about dragons?”

“No, what does he like to _eat_?”

“Fruit gummies,” Lance replies. “Not bananas. Chocolate. Pizza. Ice cream.”

“I’m sure if Shiro and Adam could convince themselves to invade a little more of Keith’s space,” Isabel says innocently, lightly. “They’d buy him an ice cream cake.”

“Huh,” Luis says.

“Oh geez,” Lisa says to Lance, grinning.

And from across the living room, Lance’s mother yells: “What are you planning?”

“Nothing,” Isabel replies.

And Lance’s father throws back his head and laughs, the sound filling the noisy room and making something dance in Lance’s chest.

 

* * *

 

“Are you coming to mom’s?” Marco asks casually on Saturday while he tunes his violin. Lance is on his belly on the couch, working on Keith’s present, and Luis is doing math homework and cursing a lot.

“Maybe,” Luis grunts.

“Lance,” their father says, flying into the room. “Go play outside!”

“I’m busy!” Lance says without looking up and then he freezes. He lifts his head and frowns at Marco, who shrugs, and then looks at Luis. To his oldest brother he says: “What did you say?”

“Words you shouldn’t repeat,” sighs their father as he steps into the living room. He bats at Lance’s legs until Lance makes room for him on the couch.

“I think,” Marco says, dragging his fingers against the neck of his violin. “I think he said ‘maybe.’”

“Maybe what?” Their father tickles at the bottom of Lance’s feet until he squirms further away.

“Maybe he’ll come to mom and Isabel’s tomorrow.”

“Maybe!” Luis yells before anyone can begin freaking out. “And if I did, it would only be for a bit!”

The rest of them stay quiet, like when approaching a nervous dog or a shuffling raccoon, and Lance hides his hopeful smile against his shoulder and his father squeezes one of Lance’s ankles and Marco begins to play.

He plays like their dad, all beautiful and lilting. Lance wishes their mother was around to hear it, but tomorrow, perhaps, she would.

 

* * *

 

Lance tries to go over to Shiro and Adam’s as soon as Luis drops them off. Isabel catches him around his shoulders and drags him back into the house.

“They’re not back yet,” Isabel says. “They went to that bookstore with the cats.”

“The Book House!”

“Yes, that.”

Luis doesn’t come in, but Lance is too impatient to be disappointed.

“Oh my god,” Rachel says and wrestles him to the floor and covers him in a blanket. “Calm down!”

“Someone’s excited for pizza,” Marco teases and drops a pillow on Lance’s head.

Lance swears revenge on them both.

 

* * *

 

He keeps Keith’s present, carefully pressed between the pages of his sketchbook, on the kitchen table. His mother promises to keep an eye on it while Lance buzzes around the house with too much energy and too much impatience. He tries to climb Marco and Marco pinches him.

Hunk comes early, too, and sits on the front steps with Lance while they wait for Keith to come back from his book adventure.

“I made brownies with my sister,” Hunk says, drumming his fingers against the tupperware on his lap.

“Oh good,” Lance says. “I’m starving.”

“They’re for Keith,” Hunk grumbles.

Lance eats three, Hunk eats one, and Marco steals four.

 

* * *

 

“Oh geez,” Adam says, half-laughing, when Hunk and Lance come barreling along the sidewalk.

Keith tries to scramble back into the car but Shiro helps them drag him out.

“Happy birthday Keith!” Lance crows.

“Why do you always yell?”

“I’m excited for you, birthday pooh head!”

“I’m not a—a—”

“Pooh head?” Shiro supplies helpfully.

Keith scowls.

Hunk lifts the mostly-emptied tupperware over his head. “I brought brownies!”

“Oh good,” Adam says and snatches it. He leads the way into the house and peels open the container. “Where’d they go?”

Lance grins, chocolate on his teeth, and Keith laughs.

Keith spreads his books on the living room floor and shows them his picks, which are really only half-interesting but there’s something invigorating about the way Keith describes and walks Hunk and Lance through his studious book-picking process. He holds them delicately and presses his fingertips to the frayed edges of the spines and he flips through the pages and smiles at the bookish-smell that leaves them, and all this makes Lance smile, too. All this makes Lance nervous, too, and he begins to worry that he’s brought the wrong gift, that he’ll bring the wrong smile to Keith’s lips but he isn’t even sure what that means so he forces the thoughts away and eats the last of the brownies.

Well, splits them with Keith while Adam crams an entire square into his mouth. That makes Shiro laugh, long and loud, and Shiro’s laughter makes Keith look up from his books and smile just a little bit wider.

Lance thinks about saying: I brought you something. He hesitates, over and over, and he’s quiet while Keith and Hunk pick a movie.

“It’s almost Christmas,” Hunk says thoughtfully.

“It’s almost Halloween,” Keith scoffs and shoves _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ into the DVD player.

It’s not Lance’s favourite movie, it’s not one he’d watch by himself when he’s lonely or sleepy, but Keith and Hunk know all the songs and Keith loves the stop-motion jerkiness of the characters and Hunk loves the way the moon looks in the movie-sky. They watch, settled on the couch with Keith tucked in the middle, until the doorbell rings and Adam yells: “Pizza!”

They scramble off the couch together, but at the door is Luis.

“Uh,” he says when Adam opens the door. Keith scrambles under Adam’s arm and blinks up at Luis.

Lance is frozen, just behind them, gaping at the otherworldly figure of his brother. Lisa prods at Luis’s elbow.

Adam says: “Hi there.”

“I’m Luis,” Luis says, clearing his throat. “I’m Lance’s brother. I brought something for Keith.”

Adam pushes Keith a little further forward with a hand between Keith’s shoulder blades and Lance watches Keith tilt his head back to look at the container Luis holds out to him.

“It’s ice cream cake,” Luis says. “It’s heavy. You should put in the freezer if you’re not going to eat it immediately.”

“Oh,” Keith says, sounding small.

“Lance says you like ice cream.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Lance likes ice cream, too. He ate most of my birthday cake last year. Better watch him.”

“Hey!” Lance squawks while Lisa and Adam laugh.

“Oh,” Keith says again, and he holds out his hands and Luis sets the container in them. “Thank you.”

“Go get Shiro to help you put it away,” Adam says quietly, squeezing Keith’s shoulder.

Keith nods and then he turns around and ducks around Adam and Lance gets this clear, bright view of the flush to his cheeks and the shine to his eyes and the way Keith can’t seem to look away from the delicate piping of his own name on the gleaming white surface of the cake: _Happy birthday Keith!_ He doesn’t look up and he dashes into the kitchen and Shiro makes a small, pleased noise of surprise that make Lance smile and smile and smile.

“Come in for a piece,” Adam says to Luis and Lisa.

“Thank you,” Lisa says for Luis, her hand on his arm, and Luis grimaces and looks away.

So Lance darts forward and grabs a fistful of his brother’s shirt and drags him in. “Come on, come on!” he says.

“I’m going to get your mom and step-mom,” Adam decides, grinning at all of them, and Hunk hoots and follows Keith into the kitchen.

The pizza arrives later.

A little after Isabel, and Lance’s mother, and Marco and Rachel and Veronica, who all cheer: _Happy birthday Keith_! Lance mother pulls Keith in for a hug that’s so tight his feet leave the ground and Keith clutches the hem of his shirt and looks at all of them with his lips parted and his eyes wide and that pink flush still on his cheeks.

Lance thinks all this is good.

“Good thing I ordered too much pizza,” Shiro says to Lance’s mother, knowing and quiet, and Lance’s mother laughs and kisses Shiro’s cheek.

 

* * *

 

“So many people,” Keith says to Lance, dragging him out of the living room. He has ice cream smeared on his cheeks and chocolate on his teeth and he smells a little like pizza and Lance wants nothing more than to hug him, in that moment. A hug tight and long and full of smiles that might just make Keith smile, too.

“Is this a fuss?” Lance asks, latching on to Keith’s hand as they scurry into the emptied kitchen. He snatches a napkin from the table and scrubs at Keith’s face until Keith bats him away.

“I guess.”

“Do you want your present now?”

Keith looks at him. His fingers twitch in Lance’s hold. “Isn’t this the present?” He gestures over his shoulder at the sound of laughter, probably Adam’s, carrying from the living room.

“What’re you two doing?” Veronica yells, waving at them.

“Go away!” Lance calls back.

Veronica rolls away and goes to hang off Rachel, who promptly falls over.

“No,” Lance says, looking back at Keith. “Not from me, anyways.”

“I didn’t want a party,” Keith mumbles.

“It’s not a party,” Lance corrects. “It’s a fuss.”

“Well I didn’t want that, either!”

Lance considers this. He rubs the pads of his fingers against Keith’s knuckles and studies the pink still high on Keith’s cheeks. “Are you mad?”

“No,” Keith says. “I’m happy, I guess.”

“You guess?”

Keith grunts. “Anyways! No presents.”

“It’s just one!”

“I don’t want it!”

“I love my whale,” Lance retorts. “Let me give you a birthday present to remember, too!”

Keith frowns and Lance is worried, suddenly, that he’s made an unfortunate promise, that he’s spit an accidental lie to the world.

He lets go of Keith’s hand and drags his sketchbook from the table, tucked between two pizza boxes, and he slips the page for Keith out.

“Ta da,” he says pathetically, holding the page out for Keith. “Happy birthday.”

Keith wipes his hands on his pants before he takes it, and that makes Lance think for the first time (but not for the last): I love him.

Lance shows his love, which is small but warm and blossoming like something taking root in a field, by smiling, even if Keith doesn’t look up long enough to see it.

Framed by Lance’s doodles is a clear, blue sky and the dark shape of a bird flying across it. In one corner, yes, is Hunk, and in another, yes, are Adam and Shiro, but in the other two are a dragon breathing bright blue fire and in the last is a rendering of Lance’s whale.

“Oh,” Keith says quietly, bringing the drawing closer to his face. “It’s the bird. From the show.”

“The documentary,” Lance corrects, his smile growing and his heart inflating. “You saw!”

“Of course I saw.”

Lance bats at Keith’s wrist. “I wrote a message for you on the back.”

“You did?”

“That’s what I said!”

Keith turns the sketchbook page over and the stiff paper ripples and laughs in his hands. Lance looks at the ceiling so he doesn’t have to see his own handwriting, and the way only Keith’s name at the very top looks neat and practiced in the light pencil of it all. “Veronica helped me with spelling,” he admits, like it could distract Keith from reading.

“Oh,” Keith says, and there’s that softness again, that quiet, like he isn’t quite sure how to say: this makes me happy.

Lance counts to four, and then he bats at Keith’s wrist again and says: “Okay you’ve read it! All done!”

Keith looks up at him, clutching his gift, and says in a tone so serious it makes something shake deep within Lance: “Thank you.”

And all Lance can say back is: “Happy birthday.”

 

* * *

 

They go to Keith’s room so Keith can tuck the drawing away, safe and sound, but get distracted and scramble onto Keith’s bed so they can peer out the window and stare at the clouds. Keith is nine, today, and Keith is smiling wide. They fall asleep, laying on the sill, and Lance forgets how but it doesn’t matter because he wakes once and knows that he’s okay staying like this.

Adam wakes them, a little later.

“Hey kiddo,” he says quietly. “Hunk’s leaving. Do you want to say bye?”

Keith makes a strangled sound and nods his head and scrambles off the bed. He makes his way to the door and then darts back, slapping at Lance’s ankle. “Come on,” he says.

Lance nods drowsily and thinks: he won’t leave me behind.

He’s reluctant to leave. Marco scoops him up and tosses Lance over his shoulder despite the shrieking that ensues.

Keith waves as they go. “See you tomorrow,” he calls.

“Happy birthday Keith!” Rachel yells as they start their way home.

Luis is around long enough to watch Lance fall back asleep, and maybe he’s gone in the morning but it all feels very right so Lance can forgive him.

No, not forgiveness. It’s something else.

 

* * *

 

In his cautious printing, Lance had written something simple and short.

 _Happy birthday Keith_ , with the evidence of his practice glaring on the cream of the page. _I want to have more sleepovers with you. Next year let’s go to the Book House together._ And then: _I don’t know what the man on the TV said but it sounded a little like the way birds fly._

The next time he’s over, he finds that Keith has framed his drawing and set it on the wall by his door and when Lance laughs his pleasure Keith grumbles and takes his hand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aldkjflasjflakdjsflkjafdslkjdklfjs


	6. Chapter 6

    Valentine’s Day.

    Lance bursts into the classroom with his tote bag full of superhero valentines and tiny chocolates for his classmates (with two cards doodled special and just right for Keith and Hunk and a smuggled king-size Mars bar for them to share at lunch). He has one smiley-face lollipop for Mr. S, but there’s a stranger at his desk.

    The stranger looks up and smiles.

    Lance is so shocked he skids in his socks. His cheeks burn, a little from the cold and a little from surprise.

    “Hi there,” says the stranger. “Are you in Mr. Scalzi’s class?

    “Uh,” Lance says.

    The stranger keeps smiling. He straightens his glasses. He shifts in the chair so they’re facing each other.

    “Where’s Mr. S?” Lance blurts.

    “He’s sick,” the stranger replies. “I’m going to be looking after your class while he gets better.”

    Lance frowns. The stranger laughs.

    Lance—doesn’t appreciate that.

    “I’m Mr. Williams. What’s your name?”

    “Lance.”

    “Nice to meet you, Lance.”

    “Yeah,” Lance mumbles, hunching to hide his chin in his tote bag. “You too.”

    He shuffles to his cubbie and puts on his indoor shoes and shrugs out of his winter coat and he tucks the smiley-face lollipop away in an inside pocket of his backpack. He thinks he’ll give it to Hunk, or maybe save it for tomorrow when Mr. S is back. Sweating in his sweater and comfortable sneakers, Lance hoists the tote bag onto his shoulder and starts weaving through the desks so he can set the valentines down. Susie gets a Batman card, and Halya gets Wonder Woman, and Alex W. gets Superman—Keith gets a dragon blowing purple fire and his name written in squiggly letters, and Hunk gets a space shuttle blasting around Saturn and his name printed firmly at the bottom.

    “Which ones are those?” Mr. Williams says, making the back of Lance’s neck prickle.

    Lance turns around and watches the substitute pick up Erik’s Batman valentine.

    “That’s for Erik,” he says, slowly.

    “Oh, yes,” Mr. Williams says and he laughs, light and airy. “I meant the other ones.”

    Lance looks down at Keith’s card, sitting next to the crumbled up eraser bits on the corner of Keith’s desk. “They’re for my friends,” he says eventually, though he feels uncomfortable saying it. Maybe it’s that it’s none of Mr. Williams’ business. Maybe it’s that he’s wandering around their classroom and poking at Lance’s classmates’ cards and sitting in Mr. S’s chair.

    _Be generous_ , says a voice at the back of Lance’s head that sounds suspiciously like his father.

    Mr. Williams puts down Erik’s valentine and comes closer to peer down at Keith’s card.

    Lance wishes he wouldn’t but he keeps his mouth shut.

    “That’s a very good dragon, Lance,” Mr. Williams says.

    “I know.”

    Mr. Williams looks at him. Lance clutches his tote.

    Mr. Williams smiles again. “Do you like to draw?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Can I see some of your drawings?”

    Lance tilts his head. “Sure, I guess,” he replies slowly. “I have my sketchbook?”

    He goes to get it and he and Mr. Williams stand at Mr. S’s desk so Lance can flip, shyly, through his sketchbook and show the birds and the stars and the humanesque shapes that are supposed to be his family and his friends.

    “This one was going to be Hunk,” Lance says, a little sheepishly. “I messed up his head.”

    “Hunk’s your friend?”

    “Yeah! He’s in this class. We’ve been best friends forever.”

    “I’m sure you’ll get his head right next time.”

    “Yeah,” Lance sighs. He flips the page. “This one’s my other friend Keith riding a dragon. He says he doesn’t like dragons but he does.” Lance pauses and looks up at Mr. Williams. “Like, a lot.”

    Mr. Williams chuckles. “I like all the colours you use, Lance.”

    “Me too! I got a new set of pencil crayons for Christmas and the reds and the blues and the greens are super bright.”

    “Bright?”

    “Yeah!” Lance flails a hand. “Like, they’re loud on the page.”

    “Ah, I think I understand.”

    Lance flips the page again and there’s the start of a drawing of a panda that’s he actually really pleased with, and he goes to tell Mr. Williams this but then Mr. Williams asks:

    “What language do you speak at home, Lance?”

    And Lance thinks nothing of it and replies: “Depends!”

    “Yes?”

    “Mostly English, I guess.”

    The class starts to file in after that so Lance doesn’t get to show off his panda, but he has his sketchbook open to the page so he thrusts it in Keith and Hunk’s faces when they come through the door.

    “It’s cold,” Hunk complains.

    “Nice panda, Lance,” Keith says, and pulls the sketchbook from Lance’s hands.

    Lance beams.

    They like his valentines, too.

    Hunk has brought homemade muffins for the class.

    Keith also did superhero valentines but his are Marvel.

Keith drags Hunk and Lance to the dinosaur corner and pulls a little bag of Kisses from his backpack and shakes them.

    “Shiro says these are for us,” Keith says.

    “Shiro’s the best,” Lance decides.

    “He is.”

    They settle on the floor like they always do and have chocolate for breakfast like they sometimes do, and Lance shows them the frog he was trying to draw the night before. He opens his sketchbook on the floor and the three of them lean over and Keith finds his hand and holds tight. Lance forgets about the substitute until it’s time for the day to begin and he drags Keith to his feet and they both follow Hunk to their desks and then there is Mr. Williams, at the front of the class.

    He smiles at Lance.

    “I wonder where Mr. S is,” Keith says quietly, rubbing his thumb against the back of Lance’s hand.

    “He’s sick,” Lance replies.

 

    ***

 

    Mr. S has pneumonia, they find out the next day. Mr. Williams will be with them for a little while.

    “Pneumonia,” Hunk moans to Keith, leaning half out of his desk. “That sounds awful.”

    “We’ll look it up,” Keith promises.

    “We could just ask Mr. Williams about it.”

    Lance, seated behind Keith, looks between them. He leans his elbows on his desk and wonders if pneumonia was that chest-thing his grandma had had the year before, but he stays quiet and stretches so he can rub his fingers at Keith’s elbow.

    Keith turns to look at him. “Hi Lance,” he says and abandons that morning’s math exercises to take Lance’s hand in a clumsy hold.

    Lance grins.

    “Do you want me to do your math, Keith?” Hunk says.

    “No!”

    “I’m just trying to save us all from grumpy Keith.”

    “I don’t get grumpy!”

    Lance snickers and sags over his desk, happy to listen to his friends talk and with his fingers warm in Keith’s hold. He rubs his cheek against his upper arm and listens to Keith complain, quietly, about Math Itself and listens to Hunk, pleasantly, tell Keith about the importance of patience while they practice their multiplication tables. Lance knows Keith prefers spelling, that he waits all day to get to the subjects he’s good at: Language Arts, Gym, Music.

    “Boys,” Mr. Williams says from the front of the room. He already has that special tone practiced, the one everyone takes when they mean Lance and Keith and Hunk.

    The three of them look at him.

    He waves a hand in a “get on with it” gesture and Keith sighs and snatches up his pencil with his other hand. Lance grumbles nonsense into his arm.

    Mr. Williams waves again.

    So Lance lets go, reluctant and slow, and Keith turns back to his math sheet so Lance can see the fluffy growth of his hair over the back of his neck.

   

    ***

 

    At Reading Hour before lunch, the three of them go to the corner with the Mr. S’s dinosaurs and crowd together, Lance tucked against the shelves and between Hunk and Keith. Keith already has his novel propped open on his knees and his bookmark caught between his teeth (holographic seahorses, borrowed from Lance), and Hunk has picked a Choose Your Own Adventure Novel from the shelves by Mr. S’s desk. Lance has a collection of books he can’t decide on, so he begins flipping through them and tries to keep himself from humming.

    Mr. Williams comes over.

    Which is—odd.

    So they look up together.

    “Boys,” Mr. Williams says. “Do you always sit together?”

    “Yes,” Hunk says for the three of them.

    Keith lets his bookmark drop back into his novel.

    “That’s a big book, Keith,” Mr. Williams says.

    “I’ve read it before,” Keith replies.

    “Really?”

    “Yes,” Keith says, and there’s a glimmer of grumpy Keith coming through so Lance grabs one of his hands and twists their fingers together. Keith’s shoulders sag. He relaxes back against the shelf.

    Lance smiles up at Mr. Williams.

    Who frowns.

    “Have you thought about sitting with someone else?” he says to all three of them and none of them.

    “No,” Keith says.

    “Why?” Lance says.

    “Just think about it,” Mr. Williams sighs and heads back to the front of the room and settles back in Mr. S’s chair.

    Lance watches him go. He feels unsettled, under his skin, and it makes him want to squirm and crawl out the windows. It makes it hard to remember what he was doing, so he taps his free hand against the hardcover on sharks he’d grabbed. Keith squeezes his hand.

    “Do you want to read with me?” Keith whispers.

    “Huh?”

    “I’ll go back to the beginning.”

    “Oh,” Lance says. “Okay.”

    It’s awkward, watching Keith flip with one hand to the beginning of the book, but it gives Lance time to shuffle a little bit closer and settle a little more comfortably between his friends.

    Before flipping a page, Keith always asks: “Are you ready?”

   

    ***

 

    They wind up on opposite teams for dodgeball. Lance nails Keith in the face in round two.

    Keith sets out for revenge in round three.

    Ms. Covas has to separate them when they start wrestling, bickering and tugging at each other’s shirts.

    At afternoon recess, they share a pack of fruit gummies and Hunk tells them about his latest death in the Choose Your Own Adventure book.

 

    ***

 

    “My teacher’s weird,” Lance tells his dad while they’re setting the table for dinner that night.

    “What do you mean? I thought you liked Mr. S.”

    “He’s sick,” Lance says and tries not to pout. “We have a sub.”

    “Oh. What are they like?”

    “He’s weird,” Lance says again.

    His father pauses with a fistful of forks. The table stretches between them. The soup bubbles on the stove.

    “Weird?”

    “Weird! Like—I don’t know.”

    “Can you try to explain?”

    Lance looks up and his father frowns down at him. He sounds serious, now, like the dad that only shows up when he really needs to, the dad that’s very different from the man who throws Lance over his shoulder and who makes faces at Marco when he’s supposed to be doing scales.

    “I don’t know. Just weird.”

    “ _Mijito_ ,” his father says, and that’s when Lance knows something’s not quite right.

    It’s validating, in a way.

    “I always feel like I’m doing something wrong,” Lance says, aware that “always” must be an exaggeration since they’ve only had Mr. Williams around for a couple of days. “He talks to us weird.”

    “You mean, to you and Hunk and Keith?”

    “Uh huh.”

    “Are you uncomfortable?”

    “I guess.”

    His father considers this. “Here’s our plan, then: you try and remember when he says something that makes you feel uncomfortable, and you write it down for me. Okay?”

    Lance sets down the last placemat and nods at the table. “Okay.”

 

    ***

 

    He finishes dinner quickly and scurries to his dad and pokes at his shoulder. “Can I use the phone?”

    “Sure.”

    So Lance calls Keith.

    Shiro answers.

    “Hi Shiro,” Lance says. “Can I talk to Keith please?”

    “Hi Lance. I’ll go get him.”

    There’s a crackle and a scuffle and then Keith’s voice: “Hello?”

    “Keith!”

    “Hi Lance.”

    “Can I ask you something?”

    “Uh huh.”

    Lance opens his mouth and the words die on his tongue and turn dry and itchy. He swallows and frowns.

    “Lance?”

    “Did you do the homework?”

    “Not yet. I can’t help with math, though.”

    “Maybe I can help you!”

    “You did it already?”

    “Uh, no.”

    Keith laughs, and it’s not what Lance meant to say but it’s what came out so he rolls with it. He scurries away with the phone to hide in the corner of his bed and he and Keith do the homework together.

    “This sucks,” Keith says three times.

   

    ***

 

    Luis is sick so Lance takes the bus in the morning and Keith, for some reason, turns bright pink when Lance troops to the back of the bus and finds him.

    “Why is your face like that?”

    “I’m surprised!”

    Hunk gets on next and yells his surprise and pleasure and pulls Lance into a hug that lasts until the bus driver roars for them to sit down. At school, Hunk leads the way off the bus, trailing behind everyone else, and Lance catches Keith’s hand.

    Keith looks at him, most of the pink gone from his cheeks. “Are you okay?”

    “Yup!”

    Keith nods and squeezes Lance’s hand and they hold on tight all the way to the classroom and then to their cubbies and then Lance is reluctant to let go long enough for them to take off their coats. Keith doesn’t seem to mind. He’s quiet and patient and just looks at Lance and waits until Lance is ready to let go.

    But Lance never really is, not until Hunk turns around and squints at them and says: “Come on! Let’s go!”

    Lance doesn’t know what his rush is but he lets go of Keith.

    He doesn’t check but he gets the feeling that Mr. Williams looks away from his computer to watch them, frowning.

    They’re supposed to go over their homework in groups. The three of them immediately turn to each other and then Mr. Williams comes between the desk and says down at them: “Not today, boys. Please find new partners.”

    “What?” Keith says.

    “New partners, Keith. Off you go.”

    Keith looks ready to fight that so Hunk slaps a hand over his mouth and says for all three of them: “Sure, Mr. Williams.”

    It disrupts the whole balance of the room. Lance winds up with Rosie and Erik, both of whom usually like to work with _their_ favourite friends.

    “It’s probably ‘cause you and Keith won’t stop holding hands,” Rosie sighs, frowning at Lance’s worksheet.

    “We did our homework together,” Lance mumbles.

    Erik pats his arm.

    Mr. Williams keeps them separated until morning recess.

    Keith all but flies across the room and latches onto Lance’s hand and grabs onto Hunk’s sleeve and the three of them look at each other.

    “This is dumb,” Lance says.

    “Get moving, boys,” calls Mr. Williams.

    They separate and pull on their coats and hurry out the door but when they get outside none of them want to do much. Keith gets frustrated holding hands with their mitts on so he tugs one of Lance’s off and shoves one of his own in his pocket and they keep their hands warm by twisting their fingers together.

    Hunk kicks at the snow. “Can we go back to working together, now?”

    “We better,” Keith says.

    “Are you going to pick a fight with the teacher?”

    “Maybe!”

    “You’re going to lose.”

    “You don’t know that.”

    When recess is over they troop back inside and find that Mr. Williams has drawn up a new seating chart on the whiteboard. When the class finishes complaining and then shuffling their desks around, Lance watches Keith break a pencil from across the room.

    “Are you pouting, Keith?” Mr. Williams asks partway through their science lesson. He sounds good-natured and teasing and warm but Lance thinks he should stop that.

    Keith reaches into his desk and pulls out his box of fresh pencils. He taps one out and snaps it.

    Mr. Williams shakes his head.

    Keith snaps another one.

    And Keith gets sent to the office.

    He doesn’t come back at lunch so Lance grabs his lunch bag from the cubbie and scurries down the halls to bring it to him.

    Ms. Kozlowski at the front desk smiles at him and promises to give it to Keith.

    Keith comes back after lunch, looking furious.

    The rest of the day goes on like that.

 

    ***

 

    “He did what?” Lance’s dad says when Lance gives his report at the end of the day.

    “He sent Keith to the office! Keith got a note he has to take home to Shiro and Adam and you _know_ that’s going to stress Shiro and Adam out so I bet Keith ate it before he had to show it to them—”

    “Lance, focus.”

    “I don’t know what to say! He was really mean and moved us around!”

    “Well, tell me what _he_ said.”

    “He said ‘are you pouting, Keith’ so Keith broke a bunch of pencils.”

    “And?”

    “And what?”

    Lance’s father sighs and puts a hand on Lance’s head and just says: “Okay. He won’t be around forever.”

    That sounds nothing like a solution, to Lance.

    “Can I call Keith?” he asks, batting his father’s hand away.

    “Of course.”

 

    ***

 

    “No,” Keith grumbles. “I didn’t eat the note.”

    “What did Shiro say?”

    “He hasn’t said anything yet.”

    “Oh.”

    “They’re _my_ pencils to break.”

    “Did you tell Shiro that?”

    “Of course not.”

 

    ***

 

    “Luis,” Lance says the next morning, creeping into the room his older brothers share. “Are you okay?”

    “I’m dying,” Luis groans.

    “Do you have pneumonia?”

    “What? No.”

    “Oh,” Lance says.

    “Why do you sound disappointed?”

    “I just want to know how long pneumonia lasts.”

    “We’ll look it up when you get home. Go catch the bus.”

    Lance rubs Luis’s shoulder. “You don’t always have to drive us, you know. You can sleep in when you’re better, too.”

    “I like driving,” Luis sighs and rolls over to go back to sleep.

 

    ***

 

    “Don’t pick a fight today,” Hunk says to Keith on the bus. “Please.”

    Keith squeezes Lance’s hand and puts his head on Lance’s shoulder and his scowl looks a little like a grumbled “fine.”

   

    ***

 

    School isn’t as fun when Lance can’t reach out and latch onto Hunk or Keith.

    But they make it through most of the day. Keith doesn’t break anymore pencils. They work quietly in new groups. Erik and Rosie and Lance get used to each other. Rosie even offers to hold Lance’s hand, which he appreciates but she’s not Keith.

    At lunch, Keith and Lance hold hands while they eat and Hunk gives them a rapidfire update on his morning at the front of the room and far away from them. Mr. Williams watches from his desk.

    At afternoon recess, the three of them make a huddle-trench in the snow by the fence and crowd into it together and it’s too cold to take their mitts off so Keith and Lance make a valiant effort to snuggle and Hunk hugs them both.

    But when they come back inside and they turn away from their cubbies, clutching each other’s hands, Mr. Williams shakes his head and says: “Boys.”

    Boys.

    Please, Lance thinks but it’s less pleading and more aggravated. _Please_.

    Boys, indeed.

    “What?” Keith snaps, squeezing Lance’s hand.

    “You’re old enough to know you don’t need to hold on to each other all the time,” Mr. Williams says with his hands on his hips. “Respect each other’s personal space.”

    “We respect each other plenty,” Keith says.

    “Keith,” Mr. Williams starts.

    “Are you going to give me another note?” Keith says. “Do I have to bring a note to my brother that says ‘got in trouble for holding hands’?”

    Mr. Williams purses his lips into a thin line. “Yes,” he says eventually. “I think so.”

    “Shiro’ll tell you where to shove it,” Keith announces.

    And Lance laughs, and that’s how they get in trouble.

 

    ***

 

    Mr. Williams gets the office to call Shiro.

    And then they call Lance’s parents.

 

    ***

 

    Mr. Williams demands Lance and Keith sit on opposite ends of the bench in the office while they wait for their parents and guardian. Lance thinks this is dumb so he kicks his legs until Mr. Williams leaves and he scuttles over on the bench to sit close to Keith and Ms. Kozlowski pretends not to notice.

    “Sorry,” Keith mumbles.

    Lance grabs his hand and squeezes as tight as he can and says: “You did good.”

    “Yeah?”

    “Oh yeah.”

   

 

    ***

 

    Adam comes and retrieves them, his glasses shining and his hair neat. Keith straightens when he sees him, looming in the doorway, and Ms. Kozlowski says a quick: “Hello, Adam.”

    “I’ve come to collect the boys,” Adam says, sounding very serious and huge, but he smiles a little at them. “Come on. Shiro’s with your teacher, now.”

    “Are my parents here?” Lance asks.

    “Your dad is. Your mom’s on the way, and I think Isabel’s coming, too.”

    “Oh,” Lance says, unsure if he should be pleased or concerned. His palms tingle and itch and he rubs his hands against his shirt.

    Keith pulls him off the bench and Adam steps out of the way.

    They say a quiet “bye” to Ms. Kozlowski.

    In the classroom, Shiro is standing and Mr. Williams sits in Mr. S’s desk. Lance’s father perks up when he sees them and waves Keith and Lance to come and sit in the front row. They squabble briefly over Hunk’s desk and then Adam separates them.

    Mr. Williams watches them, and when they’re settled he greets them: “Boys.”

    Lance frowns and hunches down in Erik’s desk.

    Keith, one desk over, crosses his arms and looks up at Shiro.

    Shiro doesn’t turn around. To Mr. Williams he says: “Why are we here?” It sounds a little like his teeth are too big for his mouth, like the way Luis was talking when the fever was at its highest, or like Veronica talks when she’s annoyed.

    Keith looks at Lance. Lance smiles but it twitches away and out of his control.

    They look away from each other.

    “Maybe we should wait for your wife,” Mr. Williams says to Lance’s father.

    Adam leans forward to poke Shiro in the back and Lance hears a click, like Shiro has closed his mouth so quickly his teeth clacked. Too big, Lance thinks again. Would Shiro ground Keith? Take away his book privileges? Until—

    Lance’s brain shorts out then and he looks down at the top of Erik’s desk. Erik has traced weird, fish-like shapes with his markers, and it looks like the tiny doodles are swimming against the once-polished surface.

    “I’ll fill her in later,” Lance’s father says after a moment. “Ms. Kozlowski said you were having a discipline issue with the boys?”

    Keith kicks his legs, his sneakers dragging and squeaking against the floor.

    “Yes,” Mr. Williams says. He scoots forward in Mr. S’s chair, wheels it closer to Mr. S’s desk so he can set his folded hands on top of it. He looks down and then up and from Shiro to Lance’s father and then back to Shiro.

    “Go on,” Shiro says.

    “Mr. Shirogane, did you see our note from yesterday? Regarding Keith’s behaviour in class?”

    “I did.”

    Adam isn’t making jokes behind Shiro, and Keith is sitting mostly still, and Lance’s father won’t look back at Lance. The room feels weird, and hot, and very unlike the colourful place Lance has always found it to be. He thinks of Mr. S’s dinosaur figurines, sitting by the window, and he wishes he could go over and stand with them. He thinks of Mr. S, with his wide smile and the sly way he could convince Lance of anything. He thinks of the gentle way Shiro had corrected him, when they met: _you can call me Shiro_ and _Mr. Shirogane was my father_.

    Lance wants to look at Keith, again, just to see if he’s okay and not scratching his fingers into his palms and not glaring so hard that his face is all scrunched and unhappy. He wishes Hunk was here, and hopes that Hunk wasn’t too sad taking the bus by himself.

    He thinks about how he was supposed to go home and look up pneumonia with Luis, and he hopes he doesn’t miss Marco’s evening practice.

    All this swirls around and around in his head and pokes around behind his eyes and wiggles through his nose, and Lance blurts: “They’re just pencils.”

    The chair squeaks when Mr. Williams shifts and turns, just slightly, to look at Lance. Lance’s cheeks burn.

    “Excuse me, Lance?” Mr. Williams says, quiet and gentle, and it doesn’t sound mean but Lance wishes someone—anyone—would yell.

    “They’re just pencils,” Lance repeats. “They’re _Keith_ ’s pencils.”

    Shiro glances back at him, too quick for Lance to get a good look at his face, and Lance looks hopefully at his father, but his father is frowning and tapping idly at his chin.

    Adam sighs, almost too quiet to hear.

    “This is my concern,” Mr. Williams says and finally looks away from Lance and to Lance’s father. “Lance’s defense of his friend is admirable, but I believe this latest outburst is evidence of the boys developing an unhealthy attachment to one another.”

“ _What_?” Keith shrieks.

    Adam puts a hand on his head.

    Keith shrinks.

    What the heck, Lance thinks.

    “An unhealthy attachment,” Shiro echoes.

    Mr. Williams glances at him briefly and then carries on like he’s talking to Lance’s dad, like Shiro isn’t even there: “Yes.”

    “You mean,” Lance’s father says eventually, slowly. “The hand-holding.”

    “Yes. They’re at an age where physical affection can start to take on certain...connotations. I’m concerned that, if unchecked, this behaviour can lead to a lack of appreciation for personal boundaries.” Mr. Williams pauses. “I think we saw some of that today.”

    “Lance laughed,” Keith grumbles. “And he held my hand. That’s it.”

    “Yes,” Mr. Williams says. “But that was enough, don’t you think, Keith?”

    “I don’t know.”

    Adam shushes Keith, quiet and quick.

    Shiro seems to grow, looming large and surrounded by the little desks of their classmates. Lance looks at his father and tries to send a psychic message: _what what what_? He doesn’t regret laughing. He doesn’t regret holding Keith’s hand. Had that really been enough to get them in trouble? Had Lance held his friend’s hand for too long and too often? There’s a slow, doubtful creep in his chest and it makes his neck and shoulders heat. He rubs his sweaty hands against Erik’s desktop.

    “I’m surprised Mr. Scalzi hasn’t brought this to your attention already. The defensive behaviour I’ve seen over the last couple of days, particularly from Keith, makes me think that this ongoing dependency will become a serious issue very soon.”

    “What kind of issue?” Shiro says.

    Adam raises his hand like he’s going to poke Shiro again, and then pulls back.

    “More than snapping pencils and holding hands, I’m sure,” Mr. Williams says and he finally, finally turns his attention to Shiro.

    “Tell me something,” Shiro says. “Were you going to send Keith home with another note today? Something along the lines of… ‘caught holding his friend’s hand, suggest immediate punishment’?”

    Lance’s father coughs.

    “That’s what I said,” Keith mutters.

    “Yes,” Mr. Williams says unflinchingly.

    “I think,” Adam pipes up, light and quick, snatching away everyone’s attention. “I think my fiance is still trying to get you to clarify what you think the ‘issue’ is.”

    Mr. Williams blinks, owl-like. He straightens his glasses and shifts in Mr. S’s chair. And then turns back to Lance’s father and says: “You’ve been very quiet. What are your thoughts?”

    “My thoughts,” Lance’s father says.

    “Yes.”

    “I think we’re done here.”

    Lance raises his chin and looks up at his father. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then smiles and watches his dad turn to look at Shiro.

    “Should we go?”

    “Excuse me,” Mr. Williams says then, shifting forward in Mr. S’s seat.

    And like everyone in the room has suddenly given him permission to, Shiro towers over the desk and Mr. Williams and he says, in a voice low and unfamiliar and strangely exciting: “We’re done. You will not say another word to Keith, or to Lance, and you can take your ‘issue’ and shove it.”

    “Told you,” Keith mutters.

 

    ***

 

    Keith grabs Lance’s hand when they all file out of the classroom. Lance looks at him, frowning.

    Keith doesn’t look back, his eyes trained on Shiro’s back.

    Lance isn’t sure if they’re still in trouble. He decides not to ask.

    They find Isabel and Lance’s mother are in the front office, talking quickly and half-loudly to Mrs. Spencer, their principal. Mrs. Spencer is nodding a lot, so her big glasses slide a little down her nose, and Lance’s mother is doing most of the talking with her hands waving and her hair wild, and Isabel looks out of the office windows and spots them and smiles.

    Lance waves.

    Shiro marches—actually, honestly marches—into the office and Lance’s mother’s flailing intensifies.

    “Are you going to go in?” Adam says to Lance’s father.

    “Oh no,” Lance’s father sighs. “I know better than to interrupt a Regina Rant.”

    “Why is mom ranting?” Lance asks.

    Keith twists their fingers together and shuffles a little closer.

    “She hates injustice,” Lance’s father replies, sounding fond.

 

    ***

 

    Shiro says they’re getting a new substitute.

    “Stop fuming, Regina,” Lance’s father says, but he doesn’t sound like he means it and he smiles and wraps an arm around her shoulders. Isabel presses a quick kiss to Lance’s forehead by way of greeting, and rubs Keith’s shoulder.

    “‘Issue’?” Lance’s mother grumbles. “Did he really say ‘ _issue_ ’?”

    “Yes,” Shiro says.

    “What ‘issue’!”

    “Keith’s bad attitude,” Adam says with a shrug. “The hand-holding.”

    Isabel covers Lance’s ears when his mother curses, but Lance gets to see Keith’s satisfied beam at the sound of it.

    “Keith doesn’t have a bad attitude,” Lance says, batting away his step-mother’s hands.

    “He does,” Adam sighs. Keith scowls up at him.

    The lot of them go to McDonald’s. Keith and Lance share a pack of nuggets and a sundae. Shiro and Lance’s mother grumble together in a corner, shoving french fries in their mouths.

    “You’re a brave boy,” Lance’s father says to Keith, leaning his elbows on the sticky table and smiling.

    “I am?” Keith nibbles at the corner of the last nugget. Lance contemplates stealing it from him.

    “Yes.”

    Lance hugs Keith really tight before they part ways, lets Isabel and his mother press quick kisses to his forehead, and then he gets into the car with his father.

    “Dad,” he says when they’re halfway home.

    “Mm?”

    “Should Keith and I stop holding hands?”

    “That’s up to you,” his father replies. “Do you like holding Keith’s hand?”

    “Yes,” Lance says.

    “I think as long as that’s true, you should keep going.”

    Lance looks out the window at the passing city and the falling snow.

    “Lance,” his father says.

    “Yeah?”

    “I never want you to be afraid of being loving, okay?”

    “Okay.”

    “Good.”

    Lance looks forward and smiles and hopes his father sees it in the rearview mirror.

 

    ***

 

    Their new substitute is a quivery young woman with wild hair and neat makeup. When Erik raises his hand and asks if they can fix their seating arrangement, she waves her hands says: “go for it.”

    She separates Keith and Hunk when Hunk offers to do Keith’s math for him again, and when Keith seems to really consider it, but Lance supposes that’s fair.

    And then two weeks later, when Mr. Scalzi comes back looking tired but happy to see them all, Lance gives him his lollipop.

    “Thank you, Lance,” Mr. S says, smiling at the smiley face.

    “Happy Valentine’s Day, Mr. S,” Lance says.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mr williams is the manifestation of every bad teacher experience i had in school and it felt very satisfying to write adults having none of it. i don’t think he’s evil, just ignorant, and i’d like to think he reflects on this experience and goes on to Try His Best to be a better teacher
> 
> in this chapter, keith is reading the golden compass


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one makes me cry for reasons that have everything to do with me being an emotional human lmao

There’s a long week of tip-toeing around Adam’s mother. She arrives on the Sunday and Adam greets her loudly (too loudly) and she shakes Keith’s hand firmly and she and Shiro mostly frown at each other.

Irene Whalen is quiet, all tight lips and anxious hands. She gives Keith strange looks and Keith spends more time than he probably should at Isabel and Regina’s, even though Lance is with his dad this week.

“She’s doing her best,” Isabel tells him on Wednesday and gives him some brownies to bring back for Shiro.

“She and Shiro don’t talk,” Keith tells her.

“I know.”

“It’s weird.”

“I know.”

“Oh thank god,” Shiro says when Keith brings home the brownies.

On Thursday Keith knows, in his bones, that Shiro isn’t sleeping so he creeps out of bed and they watch late night TV together. Keith is tired, the next morning, and he dozes off during Social Studies and Shiro is very apologetic when he gets home, but the excitement would have kept Keith awake anyhow.

Because Shiro and Adam get married on a Friday evening in late spring, under the stars and with both of them dressed in white. It’s just the four of them, like a scene out of a movie, and Keith gets the wonderful view of Adam’s hand on the back of Shiro’s neck and Shiro’s warm smile against Adam’s cheek.

And even Adam’s mother smiles.

 

* * *

 

Keith wakes up on Saturday morning and sits straight up and thinks: last night, there was a wedding.

He smiles.

It’s still early when he scrambles out of bed: there’s barely any light in the sky, just the twinkling remnants of the night. He’s still in his sleep clothes when he soars into the kitchen and finds Adam and his mother making thin pancakes, from scratch, and sees the leftover _frijoles_ packed on the counter for their trip. They’re talking quietly, back and forth and half in Spanish and half in something kind of like English. Adam’s ring gleams on his finger.

He spots Keith in the doorway and smiles.

“‘Morning,” Adam says. “Can you check on Shiro?”

“Can I have a pancake?”

“Duh.”

“You can probably have more than one,” Irene says quietly and Keith doesn’t know she’s being silly until Adam laughs, short and quick.

Keith dashes back upstairs. He knows his hair is wild and Shiro will laugh when he sees it and he wonders if Shiro will be wearing his ring, too; if Shiro will look different, now that’s he somebody’s—now that he’s Adam’s husband. Shiro is shaving when Keith finds him and he smiles when he sees Keith, peeking through the bathroom door at him.

“You’re up early,” Shiro says.

“When’re we leaving?”

“After breakfast.”

“Good,” Keith says seriously.

“Good,” Shiro repeats.

Keith runs back downstairs.

“He’s shaving,” he announces to the kitchen.

“Thank you,” Adam says over his shoulder. “Breakfast?”

Breakfast, Keith thinks and throws himself into a chair and wraps the crepe-like pancake around a smear of banana slices and nutella.

“Is it good?” Irene asks him.

“Delicious,” Keith tries to tell her but his mouth is full. He can’t even taste the banana.

 

* * *

 

Irene decides to sit in the back with Keith. She and Shiro still don’t speak to each other, but they smile at each other, and Keith watches Irene watch the back of Shiro’s head all through the drive.

Keith reads until he feels sick.

Then Irene very kindly takes his book from him and reads it aloud until Keith dozes off in the foothills.

He wakes up in the township, and it looks normal enough to him: people, sidewalks, a Starbucks. And then Keith lifts his chin and peers over the buildings and there are the mountains, looming huge and impressive and nothing like the pictures Keith had studied and dreamed of for the weeks leading up to the wedding. He gasps.

“Aren’t they lovely?” Irene asks.

“I’m glad we’re finally doing this,” Shiro says to Adam.

“I hate traffic,” Adam grumbles.

Keith presses his nose to the window and smears his fingerprints against the glass and he marvels, and he marvels, and he marvels.

 

* * *

 

Adam and Shiro both have stories about growing up and camping and visiting the Rocky Mountains. Shiro describes the crisp, fresh air and the smell of pine trees, and the special taste of rice cooked over the fire and the way his mother seemed to perpetually have dirt smeared on her cheeks. Adam remembers long hikes with his mother and the way he had studied Bighorn Sheep on the mountainside and the twist and wind of the mountain roads like something out of a fairytale.

Irene tells Keith that there is nothing quite like a morning in the mountains.

 

* * *

 

Keith bursts into their cabin first, lugging his backpack and hugging his novel. He kicks off his shoes. He runs to the kitchenette and drags himself mostly off the ground to peer through the window over the sink. He sees trees, and ground, and a deer dashing away and out of sight.

“Cool,” he says to the glass.

“Very cool,” Shiro agrees and hoists him away from the counter with his arm around Keith’s waist.

“You’re getting big,” Adam says when Shiro plops Keith back down.

Keith wiggles his toes and frowns. “So?”

Adam rolls his eyes.

Keith claims the fold-out couch and Irene takes the single bed in the smaller, second bedroom of the cabin, and Shiro and Adam consider the large bed in the larger bedroom and then look at each other. They smile.

Keith makes sure they hear him gag.

 

* * *

 

“Keith,” Adam says, pulling him aside. “We have something for you.”

“Huh?”

Shiro smiles at them. Keith frowns.

And Adam sets a box in his hands.

“What is it?” Keith pokes at the seams of the wrapping paper, the same stuff from Christmas with the dinosaurs dressed in sweaters and scarves. It makes him think of Lance, and of Shiro and Adam snuggled together on the couch at home, and the glimmer of lights in the trees when they had said “I do” just the night before.

He looks up.

“Just open it,” Shiro says.

Keith rolls his eyes and starts to slide his fingers under the folds, careful not to tug too hard at the tape or tear the edges of Adam’s careful wrapping.

“It’s okay if you tear it,” Adam tells him, like he always does (because they’re at a place, now, where Keith can say “always” and he can think of time, after time, after time, where Shiro or Adam have been his family).

“I want to keep it,” Keith mutters.

“‘Course you do,” Adam replies, just as quiet, and it’s not teasing so much as loving (because they’re at a place, now, where Keith can think that he is loved and that he belongs in the handful of wedding photos Shiro and Adam had taken).

The camera in the box is absurdly round and very black. Keith blinks at it.

“It takes little polaroids,” Shiro says, and both he and Adam take little boxes of film out of their pockets and present it to Keith.

Keith, who suddenly feels very overwhelmed and warm, with his ears ringing and his memories flashing backwards and forwards and the rings looking perfect on Shiro and Adam’s hands.

“Oh,” he says.

 

* * *

 

He folds up the wrapping paper into a thin rectangle and he sets it into his novel, next to the bookmark he had borrowed from Lance all those months ago and can’t bring himself to give back. He likes the memories, in his books and in his hands; he likes the edge of the proof of the gifts he’s been given and the friends that he’s made.

And he likes the first photo he takes with his little camera, the soft black rope wrapped around his wrist and Adam and Shiro and Irene all smiling at him.

He tucks that in his book, too.

 

* * *

 

There’s a crack in the sidewalk he sees, while they’re wandering the township together, so he takes a photo of that.

There’s the shape of Shiro’s head at the bottom of another photo, when Keith leans back and tries to capture the stretch of the mountains.

There’s Shiro and Adam, hand-in-hand while the four of them peer down at the Bow River, and there’s Irene’s gentle hand on his shoulder to help him frame the little photos just right, and there’s the sound of Shiro’s laughter that seems to echo and bounce and brighten the stretch of the sky.

The sky is smaller, here. They’re closer to it.

 

* * *

 

They eat at a restaurant on the upper level of a building, and Keith gets to sit right next to the window and watch people stream along the road below and the mountains loom high above them in the orange light of the setting sun. He tries to take a picture but the flash blinds him and his photo. He keeps the polaroid all the same.

And at dinner, Irene very quietly says: “You have a lovely smile, Takashi.”

And Keith looks at her.

And Shiro looks at her.

And Adam starts crying and tells Keith: “Don’t you _dare._ ”

Keith snaps the picture anyways.

 

* * *

 

Keith lays out his polaroids on his couch bed and the sight of them makes the thin little mattress feel much smaller, and cozy like his bed at home. He wraps a blanket around his shoulders and he smiles down at the faces of his family and he holds his camera in his lap. Adam appears to say goodnight, and he smiles down at the collection of faces, too, with his hands on his hips and his ring, still so bright and new, on his finger. Keith wants pictures of the rings, in the morning; he wants to capture the newness of them, the romantic shine of them.

“We’re going to need to get you more film,” Adam says with a smile. “And maybe an album.”

“My dad kept photos in a shoebox,” Keith says in a mumble.

“Okay,” Adam says after a moment.

“I’m going to keep these in my books,” Keith decides and gathers up the photos and looks up and makes sure to smile wide at Adam, so he knows this isn’t a sad moment but a bright moment, a loud moment, a warm moment.

And Adam says again: “Okay.”

* * *

 

Keith wakes, later that night, to quiet voices. He snuffles and snorts against his pillow and rolls over to blink at the dim light of the kitchenette and he sees Shiro and Irene leaning against the counter with a bottle of wine between them and two half-empty glasses.

Keith is sleepy enough that he can’t quite catch what they’re saying, but there’s the soft quality to Shiro’s voice that only comes out when he talks about his parents, and his memories of them and the way he misses them at his core, and there’s something similar and warm in Irene’s voice.

It’s all very soothing.

Keith falls asleep with his smile pressed into the blanket.

He thinks he hears Shiro say: “Goodnight, Keith.”

 

* * *

 

They go on a hike in the morning that lasts several hours. They devour all their snacks. Keith loses his energy halfway through and grumbles and then catches his second wind and chases it up the rest of the mountain.

At the end of their hike is a beautiful green lake, still and clear, and Keith’s polaroids can’t quite capture how lovely it is.

He touches his fingers just to the surface of the water and feels the chill of it all the way up his arm and he wiggles his sweaty toes and he clutches his camera close to his chest with his other hand.

Irene is laughing at something Shiro said and Adam comes to crouch next to Keith so they can’t see him cry.

Keith lifts his hand from the water and snatches up one of Adam’s and they watch the water together until all four of them are ready to start their way down the trail and back to home.

 

* * *

 

Home.

In the late afternoon sunlight, the street looks unfamiliar and unreal. Keith leans against the door and listens to Adam snore next to him and listens to Irene and Shiro talk quietly up front. He watches Isabel and Regina’s door pass and then he twists in his seat to watch Lance burst out and onto the sidewalk, skidding in his untied shoes. Keith feels grimy and dirty and sweaty and he wonders if he smells like a bear and he wonders if he should run inside and brush his teeth, at least, before he sees Lance, but the ache and the pull in his chest and his wrists is enough to make him forget to care.

As soon as they’re parked he tumbles out of the car and right into Lance’s arms and they fall over, crumpling onto the grass in an accidental but wonderful collision.

“Guh,” Lance groans under Keith. “I’m broken.”

“You’re not broken,” Keith huffs and scrambles off of him.

Shiro wakes Adam and Adam makes a “guh” sound of his own and Keith and Lance help unpack the car.

“We’re going to the park,” Keith decides.

“Okay,” Shiro says and hands Keith his camera.

“What’s that?” Lance asks when they run outside.

“A camera,” Keith says and he grabs at Lance’s arm and they both stop in the middle of the sidewalk. “I’ll show you.”

“Huh?” Lance says.

Keith waves his camera and says: “Smile.”

“You’re going to take a picture of me?” Lance squawks. “I should tie my shoes.”

“Your shoes won’t be in the picture! Just—smile for me.”

“Fine,” Lance says, and he smiles so wide and so bright that Keith can’t help but think: _he’s happy to see me_.

It makes him smile, too.

He snaps the photo. His camera spits out the polaroid. They peer down at it together.

“There’s nothing!” Lance scoffs.

“You have to wait,” Keith says and pokes Lance in the side. Lance swats at his hand and then they run the rest of the way to the park together.

Lance loses a shoe with a yell.

Keith runs back to get it.

They clamber up the rope-structure and Keith gives Lance an excited rundown of the weekend in the mountains, and then of Shiro and Adam’s wedding in the dark.

“Why didn’t they have a party?” Lance says with a pout, hanging by his legs. “I wanted to be there!”

“I think Adam wanted his mom and Shiro to see each other,” Keith says after a moment.

“Huh?”

And Keith doesn’t know how to explain it beyond that: it’s like the feeling in his cheeks when he sees Hunk in the morning, or the comfortable tension of waking up in the morning to the sound of Shiro singing in the kitchen, or the half-disgruntled and half-amused feeling that comes with waking up to Shiro snoring or Adam dragging one of them out of bed, or the warmth in his chest that bursts like starlight when he sees Lance.

Keith watches Lance swing and sway and then scramble impatiently a little further up the rope structure. A plip-plip-plip in his chest, a little bit of sweat in his palms, the chill of the mountain lake running up his arm.

“I’m going to miss you when you go,” Keith says.

“Huh?”

“Nevermind.”

Lance blinks down at him, and then smiles. He’s missing a tooth. His freckles are coming back. His hair is long enough that it’s beginning to curl around his ears.

“I’ll miss you too,” Lance says, like it’s nothing, like it’s easy. “Summer’ll fly by.”

“It better,” Keith sighs and he lifts his camera with one hand and snaps a photo.

Lance scowls after the flash fades from their eyes. “You haven’t even shown me the first one!”

“I’m going to take a hundred pictures.”

“Let me take one!”

“No way!”

 

* * *

 

He tucks the photos of Lance into the frame of Lance’s drawing, alongside the picture of Shiro and Adam holding hands and the shape of Shiro’s head under the mountain range.


	8. Chapter 8

The new ritual is this: Lance arrives at the door, early and cheerful and looking freckled and bright, and says that he’s come to get Keith.

Keith comes to the door and says that he’s late (though he never is), and then the two of them walk down the street to wait for the bus.

They board together and scurry to the back together, and Keith has gotten into the habit of giving Lance the window seat because he loves the way Lance presses up against the smudged glass and watches the city tumble by. He talks to Hunk and Keith, often, with his back to them and his voice bouncing off the window and the bus roaring away beneath them. They spend many mornings contemplating the lack of seat belts on the bus, and whether any of them would actually like space, and swapping homework notes.

It makes the weeks when Lance is with his dad quiet, slow, and sad. Keith tries not to feel bitter about it. He supposes if he could share Lance with anyone, it would be Hunk.

Keith turns ten in a flurry of activity: his birthday arrives on a Monday that is sunny but cool, with the leaves scattered around them and sticking to their shoes when they board the bus. It drizzles, in the morning, and it snows, in the evening. Several of their classmates wish him an excited “happy birthday” and Mr. S nabs him in the hall to present him with a sheet of puffy dragon stickers. Lance holds Keith’s hand all day and then Hunk comes home with them so they can eat cake and play board games that they get bored of, quickly. Adam does a puzzle with them and Shiro steals pieces when they aren’t looking and Veronica and Rachel come by to make a ruckus and Isabel and Regina give Keith a gift card to his favourite bookstore.

“Happy birthday, Keith,” Lance says before he goes and he hugs Keith nice and tight and promises to see him in the morning.

“Happy birthday, Keith,” Shiro says, presenting Keith with a fresh pack of polaroids while Keith has his toothbrush in his mouth.

Adam packs him leftover cake in his lunch the next day.

Everything’s just very good.

Keith has stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop and he has, instead, begun to cling to the normalcy of his life: the security of Adam and Shiro at home, and the warmth of Hunk’s hugs at school, and the firm way Lance holds his hand. It’s like the whole world is holding its breath for him, like he’s had a wonderful few months of a captured smile and even when it’s snowing the sun seems bright.

Everything’s just very good, and this makes him think nothing should change.

And then later that week, during gym, Susie and Lance get knocked out of dodgeball at the same time and they both rage against the injustice of the game and sit in the corner of the gym together. Keith watches them go and makes faces at Lance when he pouts.

At lunch, Susie and Juliana sit at the back of the classroom with them. Keith likes the way Lance laughs at the stories they tell, and the easy way the girls talk to them, and the comfortable way Hunk sits right up against Keith’s side.

“Susie’s nice,” Keith tells Lance when they get off the bus that afternoon.

“Yeah,” Lance says, twisting their fingers together.

They part ways with a hug.

Keith helps Adam make lasagna for dinner.

 

* * *

 

“You look happy,” Shiro says to him in the morning, looking up from notes for a presentation Keith half-understands and that Adam frowns at a lot.

“I am happy,” Keith says after a thoughtful moment.

“Good,” Shiro replies.

“Good,” Keith agrees.

When Lance bangs on the door, Keith rushes to answer and Shiro turns back to his notes and Adam stumbles into the kitchen with his glasses askew and a curse on his lips. Lance grins when Keith opens the door and Keith grabs his backpack and they both holler a “bye” down the hall and get a quiet “have a good day” from Shiro and something an awful lot like gibberish from Adam.

Yes, good.

 

* * *

 

On the bus, Lance tells them that Luis is mostly half-dead. Lance likes to flip through his brother’s heavy, shiny university textbooks. Keith likes to listen to Lance talk about the gloss of the pages and the way Marco steals Luis’s precious highlighters. He likes the way Lance leans back and forth, swaying to and from the window and talking even through his distraction when he spots a pigeon or a dog or someone wearing a cool coat.

The snow and the rain are gone, but the streets are wet. Keith knows winter is just around the corner. He likes this in-between place, with Lance and Hunk and the rumble of the bus, with his birthday still fresh on his teeth, and he likes the way Adam digs out his favourite scarves and the way Shiro makes hot chocolate in the evening.

Yes, good—so very good.

He watches Lance fumble and flail through a “good morning” to Susie and he smiles and he listens to Hunk tease Lance about the heat in his cheeks and he smiles and he watches Lance bat at Hunk’s arm to try and get him to “shut up shut up shut up” and Keith smiles, and smiles, and smiles.

“I think Lance likes Susie’s hair,” Hunk whispers to Keith when they’re supposed to be doing a Math sheet.

“Huh?” Keith says, doodling and scowling because—Math.

“Stop talking,” Lance hisses. “Just stop!”

“Lance is going to melt,” Hunk says gleefully. “His face is going to melt right off his—his—face.”

“What?” Keith says, setting down his pencil, and he turns around and watches Lance hide his face behind his hands and he wonders: what?

 

* * *

 

Oh, he thinks when Lance laughs too loud at something Susie says at lunch.

Oh, he thinks when Hunk teases Lance about his growing crush on the bus home.

Oh, he thinks when Lance hugs him tight before they part ways.

And oh, Keith thinks while he watches Lance bounce down the sidewalk.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hi Keith,” Adam says when Keith kicks off his shoes and walks into the kitchen. “Shiro’s not home yet and I think that means we get to decide dinner all on our own.”

“I’m not hungry,” Keith mutters and he opens the fridge and seizes the block of cheddar cheese sitting on the top shelf.

“Oh yeah?” Adam says.

“Uh huh.”

Keith slices four chunks off the block, pauses, and slices off two more. He takes his handful of cheese and he sits at the table and he starts cramming the crooked slices into his mouth and Adam says nothing for a while. Then he sits next to Keith and he leans his elbows on the table and he tilts his head.

“Keith?”

“Lance likes Susie,” Keith says.

“Who’s Susie?”

“A girl,” Keith says, and he’d feel better if he sounded bitter or mad or annoyed about it, but he mostly sounds small and that makes him want to eat more cheese.

“Oh.”

After a moment, Adam stands up again and Keith keeps eating his cheese until there’s nothing but a cheesy smear on his fingertips and it would be funny and ridiculous if it wasn’t so—

Adam comes back with a plate and more cheese. He adds crackers to the plate, and some of the salty nuts that he and Keith like, and some of the tiny pickles Shiro munches on.

Keith looks at the plate for a moment.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Adam says and nabs one of the nuts.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

“No,” Keith decides.

“Okay. You can have cheese for dinner.”

“‘Kay.”

 

* * *

 

Adam must send a text when Keith isn’t looking because Shiro comes home with a bag of the mini peanut butter cups Keith likes, the ones with the foil that crinkles pleasantly. Keith eats those until he feels sick and then Adam takes the bag away and Keith goes to lay on the couch and stare at the ceiling.

 

* * *

 

He feels a little silly, in the morning. He watches Adam make his morning coffee and he watches Shiro eat an egg and he thinks about apologizing for being weird. He sits at the table and he rubs his fingers against the wood and he frowns.

“Feeling better?” Shiro asks.

“Yup,” Keith mumbles.

He thinks about leaving before Lance arrives at the door, but what would he say when they board the bus together? How would he explain it?

He kicks his feet under the table and he listens to Shiro and Adam talk to each other and he waits.

And Lance’s knock comes, sure and loud and insistent, and Keith slips out of his chair and wanders to greet his friend.

 

* * *

 

 

“What’s wrong?” Lance asks him when they’re waiting for the bus.

“Nothing,” Keith mumbles and squeezes the straps of his backpack.

It’s cloudy. It feels like it’s going to snow. Keith would like to lay down in Mr. Zhe’s yard and press his face to the grass and wait for the snow to tickle at the back of his neck.

“Liar,” Lance says.

“I’m not!”

Lance makes a scoffing sound and Keith gets ready to fight and then Lance tugs one of his hands away from his backpack straps and holds tight. Keith watches their finger twist together. He wonders if his hand is as sweaty as it feels.

His shoulders sag. He lets out a breath

“Nothing’s wrong,” he mumbles.

“Okay,” Lance says, and squeezes his hand.

 

* * *

 

 

They hold hands while they go through the homework Keith didn’t do, crouched in the corner of the classroom with Hunk. They hold hands through morning recess and they hold hands at lunch while Lance fumbles through a conversation with Susie.

“I like your braid, Susie,” Lance tells her, his fingers twitching against Keith’s.

“Thanks,” Susie replies, smiling wide.

And when she turns that smile on Keith, he manages to smile back.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s Friday so Shiro gets to choose what they eat and he decides to order Chinese food.

“Ugh,” Adam says.

“Can we get the chicken balls?” Keith says.

After Shiro puts in the order, Keith goes down the street to visit Lance and his siblings and he watches Luis suffer through a reading and he watches Marco tune his violin. Lance and Veronica teach Keith a card game that he’s pretty sure they made up on the spot, and Rachel plays with Keith’s hair even when he tells her to go away. Keith sticks close to Lance and Lance links their arms and drags Keith around Isabel and Regina’s bustling living room.

“Oh,” Regina says when Keith starts to leave. “I have a book for Adam. Hang on.”

And while Keith is waiting, Lance shuffles close and holds his hand and tells Keith that they should go to the park tomorrow night and try to count stars. 

“Okay,” Keith says, looking at their hands.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Lance says.

“Oh.”

Keith tries to flip through the thick hardcover Regina hands to him. He scuffs his shoes against the sidewalk and he drags his fingers against the edges of the pages and the corners of the cover and the shape of the letters on the spine, but it all seems like gibberish and this makes him feel unsteady and confused. Like something isn’t right.

He snaps the book shut and hugs it to his chest and makes his way home and he thinks about how Lance had complimented Susie’s hair. But he thinks, too, about the nice fluff of Lance’s own hair that morning, before he had mussed it by pulling on it and running around in gym. Keith thinks, too, about the flail of Lance’s shoelaces and the fading spatter of Lance’s freckles and the nice straight line of Lance’s teeth. He thinks about Lance chewing on his pencils and he thinks about the loud way Lance speaks on the phone and he thinks about Lance’s favourite foods: strawberries, and chocolate cupcakes, and mini donuts, and fruit gummies, and—

“Food’s here,” Adam says when Keith wanders into the kitchen.

And wandering’s exactly what it is.

Wondering.

“What’s a crush feel like?” Keith asks, sliding the book onto the table between a box of spring rolls and a container of the fat noodles Adam likes.

“Huh?” Adam says.

“Why do you ask?” Shiro says.

Keith opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He frowns. And then he tries again: “Do I have a crush on Lance?”

And Adam makes a face but Shiro just shrugs and says: “Do you?”

Keith shrugs back and Adam makes another face, all scrunched and confused and probably hungry.

 

* * *

 

 

Before bed, Keith opens up his favourite notebook and he grabs a worn pencil and he decides to make a list of the things he likes about Lance. Shiro comes to say goodnight and finds Keith on number thirty-one and they look at each other.

Keith closes the notebook.

“I’m going to bed, now,” he says.

Shiro leans against the doorframe and smiles and replies: “Okay. Goodnight, Keith.”

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning he and Lance steal Veronica’s longboard and shriek their way up and down the street.

Keith adds seven more things to his list.


	9. adam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a side story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would say “look out for the yltwil easter egg in this one!” except it’s stupidly obvious lmao

    Adam opens the fridge door one Saturday morning and he frowns at the shelves and he looks back at Keith.

    Keith looks up from his book, an apple slice poking out of his mouth.

    “Groceries,” Adam decides.

    “Huh?”

    “Let’s go grocery shopping.”

    Keith frowns. He chews. “It’s Saturday.”

    “Yes.”

    “It’ll be crazy.”

    “We’ll call it an adventure, then.”

    Keith shrugs and closes his book and asks: “Can I bring my apples?”

    Of course he can bring his apples.

    Maybe they’ll pick up Takashi on the way home. Maybe they’ll make something good for dinner. Maybe steaks (and one portobello mushroom). Mashed potatoes. Corn.

    “Can I bring my book?” Keith says, waving his novel.

    “Yeah.”

    “Can I sit in the front?”

    “No.”

    Keith scoffs but goes to put on his shoes and gather the grocery bags. Adam watches him go and then shakes his head and tugs the grocery list from the fridge door. Takashi has scribbled “potatoes” four times. Keith has added “cheese please” and “stuff for muffins.”

    Adam goes into the hall and waves the list. “Stuff for muffins?”

    “Yeah!” Keith is sitting on the floor now, surrounded by their reusable bags while he wrestles on his sneakers.

    “Like, to make muffins?”

    “Yup.”

    “How about we just buy some muffins?”

    “‘Kay.” Keith looks up from his laces. “And strudels.”

    “Are we on a pastry kick?”

    Keith scoffs again. “I don’t know what kind of kick _you’re_ on but I want muffins.”

    Adam pokes his shoulder and hoists him to his feet.

    Keith reads in the backseat on the way to the grocery store. Adam curses when his spot in the parking lot is stolen—stolen! bastards.—and Keith hides his snickers in his book.

    “Don’t tell Takashi,” Adam pleads.

    “He knows,” Keith says. “He has special Shiro-senses.”

    Adam supposes that’s true.

    Keith picks the cart and laughs when the wheels shriek at Adam. Adam threatens to put him in the cart’s basket. And then they both consider this.

    “Yes,” Keith says, and Adam holds it steady while Keith scrambles in. Keith looks back at him, steady and serious and looking _hilarious_ with his crossed legs and messy hair. He seems so small for his ten years. “Onwards, Adam.”

    “Onwards, Keith.”

    Five minutes later: “You’re heavy.”

    “I am not!”

    Keith reads through the grocery list while Adam rifles through his stash of coupons.

    “Does Shiro want four potatoes?” Keith asks. “Or four kinds of potato foods?”

    “Who knows.”

    Produce is closest to the door so they always start there, even if they always regret it. Keith asks for apple pears. They grab exactly one Red Delicious apple for Takashi. They wheel by a display of berries and Keith makes a noise and all but throws himself at the side of the cart.

    “Keith!” Adam scolds.

    “Let’s get strawberries!”

    Adam sighs and wheels Keith closer to the display. Keith studies the different clamshells for a moment and then nods to himself and tugs one free. He sets it very carefully next to the apple pears.

    “You like strawberries now?”

    “Maybe.”

    Uh huh, Adam thinks.

    He grabs a package of blueberries. “Pancakes,” he says, shaking them at Keith.

    Keith takes them. “Speak in full sentences, you weirdo.”

    “Says the boy in the shopping cart.”

    They grab three zucchinis, some carrots, more kale than is probably necessary but Keith—that odd, wonderful boy—Keith loves kale. Keith shakes the bag of green beans Adam hands him, and pokes at the portobello mushrooms Adam grabs, and then says “oof” at the bag of potatoes Adam puts next to him. And then Adam—

    “Are you sure that’s enough corn?” Keith says with a grin.

    Adam tickles his face with the silk of the corn. Keith tugs the bag away from him and holds it protectively, just above the strawberries.

    “Are you going to come out of there anytime soon?”

    “Nah. You need the exercise.”

    “Brat.”

    Adam grabs a loaf of sourdough bread next (Keith sniffs it and smiles) and then they pick apple strudels and blueberry muffins. They consider an Angel Food Cake and then sigh and move on with their lives.

    Keith wrestles his way back out of the cart when they get to the meat section.

    “I can handle _looking_ at meat,” Adam says.

    “Nah,” Keith says again and scurries away before Adam can catch him.

    Adam pushes the squeaky cart, scowling, until Keith returns, holding a pack of four steaks that shriek FAMILY with an orange and red sticker. Keith shoves the pack by the potatoes.

    “Are those good steaks?” Adam asks, squinting down at them.

    “I don’t know.”

    “We’ll tell Takashi we did our best.”

    “We always do.”

    They carry on.

    Keith checks Adam’s watch before they turn down the cereal aisle. He nods to himself.

    “We have lots of time,” Adam tells him.

    “I know,” Keith replies with a shrug.

    He puts seven different boxes of cereal in the cart. Adam allows one to stay.

    “Mini Wheats,” Adam says, tapping the box. “And no more!”

    Keith puts the other six boxes back, standing on his toes to shove the box of Fruit Loops onto the shelf above his head. He returns to Adam and twists his fingers in the grate of the cart and they go to find mayonnaise, and jam, and milk and eggs and cheese. Instant macaroni and cheese, just for Takashi. They backtrack when they realize they’ve forgotten butter. Keith pines for cheese strings but won’t let Adam put them in the cart.

    This is their time.

    Not always on a Saturday, with its crowds and shrieking children, and sometimes with Takashi in bemused tow.

    Yes, their time and from the start. Adam still has strong, clear memories of Keith, just two years earlier, clutching the grocery bags and frowning instead of asking for what he wants. Sometimes Adam looks at him and sees a glimmer of the quiet boy Takashi had brought home, and now Adam looks at him and wonders: is this what parenting feels like? Except that doesn’t feel right, or appropriate, or—something, so he squishes the thought down and he smiles at Keith and makes a further mess of his hair until Keith threatens to steal his glasses.

    “Like you could reach,” Adam teases.

    “Ugh!”

    Keith picks the line that seems the least wearisome and then he grows restless and wanders away to look at the books and magazine and little candies crowded around the tills. Adam leans against the cart and counts their potatoes and then the blueberries and he manages to keep from looking at his watch. There’s a limit, he knows, to fretting; there’s a limit to what he can take.

    It isn’t hard every week.

    Keith comes back with three Kinder Surprise Eggs and puts them in the cart.

    “Really?” Adam says.

    “One for each of us.”

    “Really?” Adam says again.

    Keith rolls his eyes and makes like he’s going to climb into the cart again but instead he leans over into the basket and pulls out the strawberries. He surveys them, turning the clamshell carefully in his hands.

    “These are nice strawberries,” he decides.

    They shuffle forward in the line.

    “They’ll do just fine,” Adam agrees.

    The cashier calls Keith his brother. Keith and Adam don’t correct them.

    They have time to go home and unpack the groceries. Isabel and Regina come by while Keith is shaking the box of Mini Wheats thoughtfully and they present Adam with a small basket of herbs from their garden. Adam doesn’t even try to refuse. He shoves his face in the bundle of parsley and mint and basil and breathes in deeply.

    He returns to the kitchen to find Keith elbow-deep in the box and his cheeks bulging with the Mini Wheats.

    “Seriously?” Adam says.

    Keith makes a noise that might be words in a mouth that isn’t full of cereal.

    They leave once the grocery bags are folded and carefully put away and the half-empty box of Mini Wheats is set on the shelf and once Keith has started the new grocery list and stuck it to the fridge door and after Adam has counted twenty-nine of his own breaths.

    Keith reads in the backseat, again. Adam’s shoulders relax with every page he turns, the soft sound of it comforting and familiar. They park in their usual spot, under the tall tree with the spindly naked branches. Keith sets his book aside and unbuckles himself and scrambles into the front seat and they both eye the front doors, just far enough to be comfortable. Adam leans over Keith’s head. Keith rubs his fingers against the edge of the window.

    Takashi emerges a little after 12:30. He stops and he leans his head back and he seems to stare up at the sky. And then he waves at them and starts making his slow way over.

    “He looks tired,” Keith mutters.

    “It’s tiring work,” Adam says.

    Keith nods and scrambles out of the passenger’s seat just as Takashi comes to the door.

    “Hi,” Takashi says, throwing himself into the vacated seat.

    “Hi.” Adam leans in for a kiss, just a peck and a smile. When he pulls back he can’t help but study and wonder at the crinkle around his husband’s eyes, at the white in his hair and the scar across his face.

    “We went grocery shopping,” Keith announces, patting Takashi’s shoulder. “We couldn’t figure out your potato message.”

    “I thought it was pretty clear.”

    “It wasn’t.”

    Adam leaves them to their nonsense and backs out of their spot, leaving the tree with his wavering limbs behind.

    “How’s Dr. Mosse?” Keith asks.

    “Buckle up,” Takashi replies. “She’s good.”

    “Did she give you any homework?”

    “Not this time.”

    “Good,” Keith says and finally shuffles back. “You need a break.”

    Yes, Adam thinks and glances at Takashi out of the corner of his eye. Yes.

    They get home and Takashi congratulates them on choosing some “okay” steaks and then they start on the mashed potatoes.

    Keith presents Takashi with four potatoes, and then with four bags of potato chips. Takashi eats half of one of the bags of chips before Adam can yell and stop him.

    “How much corn did you buy?” Takashi says, stifling his laughter.

    “As much as we needed,” Adam sniffs.

    “Nobody needs this much corn.”

    “Adam does,” pipes up Keith.

    “Strawberries?” Takashi says next.

    “They’re for Lance,” Adam tells him.

    “Oh my god!” Keith yells. “No, they’re not! They’re just nice!”

    “That’s sweet, Keith.”

    “Oh my god!”

    And in Takashi’s usual post-therapy ritual, he teases Keith and eats more than he probably should and then falls asleep on the couch, leaned against Adam and while half-listening to Keith talk quickly about the latest plot developments in his novel.

    Keith and Adam split the rest of the mashed potatoes and watch TV.

   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter, keith is reading kenneth oppel’s sunwing. :)


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was one of the chapters i was most excited to write when i started outlining this
> 
> something of a timeskip. the boys are growing up. i cry.

“Do you want to go sit with Susie?” Keith says one day, toying with the frayed edges of his book. He tilts his head, just so, so the growing mess of his hair shifts and frames his face in a way that’s almost funny but definitely makes Lance smile.

“No,” Lance says, finding that—yes, he’s happy where he is. “I’m sitting with you.”

Hunk joins them a moment later, heaving a huge sigh and opening up his steaming lunch. “Is it Christmas yet?”

“No,” Keith says.

“I didn’t need you to actually answer.”

Lance passes his lunch hour in one of his favourite places: with his friends, listening to them bicker idly in their special Keith-and-Hunk way, watching the way Keith itches to pick up his book but also itches to tease and listen to Hunk, watching the way Hunk wobbles on his seat as he speaks with his whole body. Lance leans his elbow on the desk and crowds into their space with a smile and they carry on, together, and when the moment feels right he snatches up one of Keith’s hands and pokes at one of Hunk’s legs with his foot until Hunk steps on him.

(On their first day of the holiday break, Lance and Keith go outside and try to catch the lightly falling snow on their tongues. They hold hands and Keith sneezes once and Lance laughs and they crowd close together. Keith kicks at the snow on the sidewalk and Lance watches the snowflakes flutter against their joined hands.

They wait for Hunk. Veronica yells for them to come inside.

Lance makes a face at her and leans against Keith’s side and wiggles his toes in his boots. When Hunk arrives he drags them both into a hug and Lance finds that he likes the way Keith’s smile gets squished against Hunk’s shoulder, against the puffy yellow of Hunk’s winter coat.

Keith’s cheeks are flushed from the cold, from the snow, from the warmth.)

 

* * *

 

 

In late February, Lance walks into a door frame when Valerie Tran says hello to him in the hall after recess. He gets a nasty bruise between his eyebrows and he sniffs up his tears of surprise and pain and clenches his teeth.

“Geez, Lance,” Hunk says, dragging Lance’s hands away from his growing bump.

“Does it hurt?” Keith asks, touching his shoulder.

“Yes,” Lance whines.

“Maybe we should go get the nurse,” Keith says to Hunk. And then to Lance: “Are you dizzy?”

“No!”

He tries to explain to them, later, while they’re supposed to be doing a Science worksheet and long after Lance’s ice pack has melted a wet patch onto his desk.

“Is it her hair?” presses Hunk.

Keith taps his pencil against his cheek, twisting in his seat to look at Lance.

“No,” Lance says. “Well, maybe.”

“She’s got nice printing,” Keith suggests.

“She does?”

“I think so.”

Lance squints at him. “Do _you_ have a crush on Valerie, too?”

“No!”

“Is it her eyes?” Hunk says. “Are they a nice colour?”

Lance doesn’t know what colour Valerie’s eyes are, off the top of his head. He knows she has delicate hands and a soft voice, and he likes the way she holds a pencil and the way she ties her shoes. He tries not to watch her but she’s so careful with everything she does, so deliberate and focused and her cheeks are always slightly pink.

“I just like her, okay,” he grumbles and scribbles harshly at the corner of his notebook.

“You should talk to her,” Keith says with a shrug and turns back around.

“No!”

“You’re so weird.”

Lance looks up at that and ignores the way Hunk snickers and he studies the halfway-tidy fall of Keith’s hair just above his shoulders. He’s wearing a new shirt: the dark red of it suits him, with the little embroidered elephant on the sleeve that makes Lance think Adam picked the shirt out.

“Do _you_ like anyone?” Lance says to Hunk, aiming a kick at his desk and missing.

Hunk scoffs. “No! Thank goodness.”

Lance rolls his eyes and flicks some of his ice pack water at Keith’s back. Keith hunches and Lance knows he’s scowling. “Keith?”

“Lance.”

“Do _you_ like anyone?”

“I have books,” Keith says, like that’s an answer.

“You guys are boring,” Lance mumbles.

(They’re not. They’re Lance’s favourite people, most days. Sometimes he wakes up and he rolls his face into his pillow and he scowls because he misses them, so loudly and so much.

On Sunday morning, he brushes his teeth in a hurry and almost forgets to change out of his sleep clothes before he bounds down the sidewalk to visit Shiro and Adam and Keith. Adam answers the door with his glasses all crooked and his face all frown-y and he says: “Good morning, Lance.”

“Hi,” Lance says. “Can I come in?”

“Why not.”

Keith groans when Lance throws himself onto his bed.

“Keith!” he cheers.

“Hi Lance,” Shiro says sleepily from the door.

“Hi Shiro.”

“Go away!” yells Keith, dragging his blankets over his head.

“Geez,” Lance says. He wrestles his way into the bed and steals Keith’s pillow.

Keith begrudgingly allows this.

“Don’t breathe on my face,” he grumbles, squinting at Lance.

“I brushed my teeth!”

Keith groans.)

 

* * *

 

 

Keith’s eyes are dark, so dark they’re almost black. That’s one detail Lance always gets right.

“Don’t draw me,” Keith complains.

Like Lance would ever listen to _that_.

* * *

 

 

April.

It rains, finally. Pours. They’re in the middle of a math test and Lance looks up when the rain starts pounding against the windows and he yells: “Rain!”

Ms. Lee says: “Sit _down_ , Lance.”

Lance tries to concentrate. He really does. He’s not even half done the test but all he can hear is the rain, the promise of spring and summer and beautiful cloudy skies. He rushes through the rest of the test when Ms. Lee reminds him they’re running out of time.

“Okay, Lance,” she says when Lance bounces in front of her desk, clutching his exam. “You can go outside.”

Maybe he tosses his exam on the pile. Maybe he hoots when he rushes out the door, early for recess but feeling late for the rain.

He definitely runs back and grabs Keith and Hunk before they have even changed their shoes or put on their coats and he definitely ignores Hunk when he yells: “You’re wearing your inside shoes!”

Hunk wrestles away and promises to bring an umbrella and Keith tells Lance to slow down but then they burst out the double doors and Lance can hear it: the rain, the falling rain, hitting the sidewalk and covering the sky and making the field wet and so brightly green he feels momentarily blinded.

“Wow,” Keith says.

Lance knows he’s talking about the sudden heavy rainfall, the way it feels like a prairie thunderstorm is roaring their way, but he says breathlessly: “Isn’t it amazing?”

“Yeah,” Keith agrees after a moment. And then: “Do you want your coat?”

“No.”

“Do you want _my_ coat?”

Lance laughs and tugs Keith out from the cover of their school and Keith squawks when the rain starts pelting them with cold and with wet and these enormous fat drops. Lance spreads his arms and whirls in a circle. The first rain after winter is always the best, always the coolest, always fills his chest with noise and bubbles of laughter and something that he can only call _happiness_.

“Holy crap,” Keith says, and when Lance turns to look at him Keith has his shoulders hunched and his eyes are huge and his hair is plastered to his face. Lance laughs again and Keith says, again: “Holy _crap_.”

Lance yells wordlessly into the rain and tastes it on his lips. He reaches for Keith and twists their wet fingers together and presses their wet palms together and he drags Keith into a splashing circle so they can dance in the rain, together. Their shoes squelch against the wet ground and grass clings to Lance’s indoor shoes and their clothes are soaked, even through Keith’s coat, and Lance doesn’t stop smiling. Bit by bit, step by step, Keith shoulders relax and he squeezes Lance’s hands and they spin until Lance feels dizzy and then they wobble together. Hunk arrives with the rest of the class, running through the rain with an umbrella stolen from the office held over his head. He crashes into Keith and Lance and makes annoyed and panicked sounds at how wet they are.

The three of them crowd under the umbrella. Lance drips and Keith shivers against Hunk’s side.

It’s a nice long, quiet recess. Lots of kids stay crowded by the school, watching the rain. Lance is content where he is and Hunk is content to complain and Keith is content to quietly wring out his hair all over Hunk’s shoes. When the bell rings and calls them back inside Lance pulls Keith out from under the umbrella again and they spin together one more time and Keith doesn’t complain; he smiles.

Ms. Lee heaves a huge sigh when they come inside, dripping. Lance is holding his indoor shoes in one hand and his balled up socks in the other.

“Goodness,” Ms. Lee says. “Really, Lance.”

He grins at her.

He drips all over his desk and Keith keeps snorting through a laugh as he tugs at his wet shirt.

Juliana, to Lance’s left, leans over and taps his shoulder just as they’re about to start Language Arts.

“Lance,” she says softly, and when he turns to look at her he falters, just a little, because she’s smiling all small and her freckled cheeks have this light pink flush. She tilts her head and pulls back her hand and says: “I didn’t know you liked the rain so much.”

Thunder crashes distantly, then. Hunk says: “Good thing we came inside ‘cause we’d die if lightning hit the umbrella.” And Keith replies: “Lightning’s not going to hit us, Hunk.” And Hunk says: “Have you not been paying attention to anything, ever?” And Keith says: “It would really just be you ‘cause you’re the one holding the umbrella.”

“Uh,” Lance says to Juliana. “Yeah. I like the rain a lot.”

Understatement.

Hunk is yelling, quietly, at Keith.

Juliana keeps smiling at Lance and she tucks some of her dark hair behind her ears. She chews on her lip and kicks one of her legs under her desk and then looks back at Lance and says, with a twitch of her face: “I like your smile, Lance.”

Oh, Lance thinks. His face heats.

“Thanks,” he says, and tries to smile wide for her.

Juliana’s cheeks go a little more pink and then she whirls away and hunches over her desk.

Lance looks away too and rubs at his favourite pencil and bites his lip to keep from smiling too big.

 

* * *

 

Their last day of classes is a sunny June day. Keith is climbing a tree instead of drawing clouds, like they’re supposed to, and Hunk is scribbling a picture of a lion in his notebook.

Juliana comes to sit next to Lance so their shoulders touch and Lance presses his pencil crayon a little harder against his sketchbook to keep from twitching.

“I’m sad to be going to a new school,” Juliana says, rubbing her finger against her papers.

“It won’t be too bad,” Lance says. “One more year!”

No, in fact Lance thinks middle school will be exciting, and new, and maybe he’ll miss their teachers and the way Mr. S starts school assemblies with bad jokes, but growing up feels exciting when he’s in the sun and listening to Keith threaten the tree and watching Hunk’s back curve when he leans over his notebook. He’s excited to take one more year, here, take the seat as the oldest kids in the building. It changes the way the classrooms and the hallways and even the bathrooms look, and it makes him feel tall and otherworldly even now.

“It’ll mean making new friends,” Juliana sighs.

Lance is about to say “that’s not so bad, either” but then Keith leaps out of the tree and falls over and Hunk yells for him to be more careful and Lance thinks: new friends?

“Oh,” he says. “I guess.”

“Lance,” Juliana says, and there’s that shy flutter to her voice again that makes Lance’s cheeks grow warmer. He drops his pencil crayon. “Can I hold your hand?”

“Huh?” he says, his brain fizzing into nothing.

“Nevermind.”

“No! No. It’s—okay.”

He holds out his left hand, palm up, and after a breath Juliana takes it. They twist their fingers together. Juliana smiles. Lance sweats. Her hand is warm, and soft, and small. She has freckles on her knuckles, too, and a dark birthmark at the knob of her wrist. Lance settles, after a moment, and looks down at their joined hands. His heart beats, steady and slow, in his chest.

When they are called to come back in, Juliana lets go and waves goodbye to him. Lance can hear Susie and Monica tease her when Juliana joins them, and he watches the shy bow of Juliana’s head and listens to the way she begs them to stop.

He turns and he watches Hunk dig leaves out of Keith’s hair and studies the impatient scowl on Keith’s lips. He runs to them, scooping up Hunk’s notebook and Keith’s abandoned pencil case as he goes.

“Did you win?” he asks Keith, poking him in the side.

Keith bats his hand away. “I was just climbing!”

“I heard you picking a fight with the tree.”

“I don’t want to be your friend anymore,” Hunk says mournfully. “It’s too stressful.”

“Too bad,” Keith huffs.

“Leave him alone,” Lance says, reaching to tug at Hunk’s shirt.

“What about bugs!”

“If there are bugs in my hair,” Keith says, almost shouts. “There are bugs in my hair!”

Lance snickers. Hunk frowns.

“Maybe don’t shout that,” Hunk says.

Keith flushes and hunches his shoulders.

“Come on,” Lance says. He reaches out and Keith meets him halfway. Lance watches their hands slot together, their fingers tangle, and he studies Keith’s stubby nails and his scratched knuckles.

They start back. Hunk leads the way, waving a stick until he grows bored of it and tosses it aside. Ms. Lee leans out of the double doors and yells for the three of them to hurry up. They don’t.

“I wasn’t sure you’d still want to hold my hand,” Keith mutters.

Lance glances at him. Keith scowls up at the sky.

“You’re still my favourite,” he teases and Keith scoffs but seems pleased.

It’s true: holding Keith’s hand is, somehow, still the best of all.

 

* * *

 

 

Rachel meets a boy, just a year older than her. Veronica doesn’t like him. Rachel tells Veronica to mind her own business.

And Lance can’t help but tag along after them.

The summer sun is hot and even his grandmother’s hugs aren’t enough to keep him out of the water but David’s smile draws him close. David has a big laugh: he finds Rachel funny, though Lance doesn’t always know why, and his dark brown hair curls nicely against his forehead and behind his ears. He’s strong, too: he, like Luis and Marco, can hoist Lance up by his waist and toss him into a wave and Lance gets to hide his grin in the splash and salt of the water. David never talks to him like he’s a little kid, unlike Luis and Marco, and he’s polite to Lance’s mother and Isabel. On Lance’s birthday he gives him a clap of a high five and declares Lance the Birthday King.

One late afternoon just days before they’re set to leave, Lance stands ankle-deep in the water and feels the tug of the sea against his skin and he wonders what Keith would say, if he was here, and how loud Hunk would cheer while he ran through the sea. He turns away from the horizon and he listens to the noise of the birds and of the other beach-goers—the tourists and the lilting sound of a handful of different languages—and he studies David and Rachel as they chat, leaned towards each other.

The bump-bump-bump of David’s spine, and the broad stretch of his shoulders, and the bounce of his hair when he tilts his head or nods—it’s all suddenly very enchanting. Lance holds his breath.

He runs to them.

“Lance,” David greets and grins toothily down at him and Lance beams and his cheeks flush and he manages not to say: “I like it when you say my name.”

(During their layover in Toronto, Lance scurries up behind his sisters and taps Rachel on the shoulder. Rachel tugs out her earbuds and frowns at him.

“Do you think David misses us?” he asks.

“Maybe,” Rachel says and shrugs.)

 

* * *

 

 

“How many crushes have you _had_?” Keith says.

Lance swings, upside down, and grins at him. Keith shakes his head and then clambers onto the rope structure to join him. They still don’t have a name for it.

There’s a group of smaller kids playing by the swings and throwing themselves down the slide.

“I’m serious,” Keith continues. “I’ve had, like, one crush, and here you are with—a million!”

Lance grunts and straightens himself so he’s sitting on the rope with his palms sliding harshly against it. He kicks his feet. Keith settles next to him.

The sky is very blue, and very clear. Lance feels, somehow, very ten-years-old.

“I don’t know,” he says with a shrug. “I’m just very loving, you know.”

“Yes,” Keith says seriously. “That is very true.”

“Don’t say it like that!”

“What!”

Lance scowls to try and kill his blush and Keith rolls his eyes.

“I think Adam bought maple walnut ice cream,” Keith says after a moment. “We should go eat it.”

Lance is about to say something along the lines of “yes” when Keith looks back at him, in that steady Keith way of his, and Lance closes his mouth. Keith blinks his dark eyes and grips the rope a little tighter and tilts his head.

“What?”

“Your hair’s growing out nicely,” Lance says. It sounds like something his mother would say. The words feel awkward in his mouth, on his tongue.

“Thanks?”

“Are you going to cut it again?”

Keith shrugs. “Maybe. _You_ should grow yours out a little more. It’s nice when it’s curly.”

“Yes,” Lance agrees, a little wistfully.

They climb down, together, and run their way back to Shiro and Adam’s. Keith grabs a chair so he can reach the freezer and Lance grabs two spoons. They go back outside and turn right, instead of left, and the wander with the pint of ice cream and the spoons until they find a smaller park, with no playground, and they scramble onto a bench together. Keith peels open the lid and Lance shoves the spoons into the melting ice cream and they both consider it.

“I guess we have to eat all of it, now,” Keith says.

They grin at each other.

 

* * *

 

 

Keith turns eleven in October. They have a sleepover the weekend before and fall asleep on Keith’s bedroom floor. Hunk snores, and Keith snores back, and Lance leans up on his elbows and frowns at both of them.

He sighs and flops back down and hugs his pillow and scoots a little closer to Keith. He can see Hunk’s shoulders move as he breathes and he can watch the slow rise and fall of Keith’s chest. He holds his own breath. Carefully, he reaches out. His fingers twitch. He feels stuck, momentarily, and then he sets his hand on Keith’s chest gently and he concentrates so he can feel Keith’s heart beat.

It’s slow. It’s steady.

Lance falls asleep like that.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s a new boy in their grade, which Lance thinks must suck because they’re all leaving next year, anyways. He’s quiet and scratches his head a lot but Lance has seen his artwork in the hallway and it makes him seek the boy out, one day in November.

“Hi Aaron,” he says.

Aaron looks up from the snowcastle he’s making.

“Hi.”

“I’m Lance,” Lance says. “I’m from class B.”

“Oh. Hello.”

“I like your art,” Lance continues and crouches in the snow next to Aaron. “You draw really well.”

“Thanks.”

“I draw, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

At lunch a few days later, Aaron comes to their classroom door with a sketchbook clutched to his chest. “Ms. Goulet,” he says, very politely. “Can I come in?”

“Hi, Aaron!” Lance shouts.

Keith kicks him.

Aaron makes a beeline for them, where their desks are crowded together and their lunches are spread haphazardly. “Hello, Lance,” he says. “I brought my sketchbook. Would you like to see?”

He’s awkward. The way he speaks is kind of odd, and he keeps looking away and then back. But Lance likes him. Lance likes the twitchy way he smiles and the way he hunches his shoulder to hide a laugh.

Keith and Hunk and Lance lean over Aaron’s open sketchbook together and Lance makes sure Aaron listens to every excited compliment he offers. Aaron smiles that shy smile of his, small and strained, and by the time he has to go back to his own classroom Lance is convinced he’s made a new friend.

He’s pleased. He’s cheerful. He hums while they shove their desks back into place.

“Aaron’s nice,” Lance says to Keith, grinning and packing away his lunch.

Keith straightens his desk, frowns at it, and then straightens it some more. And then he looks up and he says: “I like your drawings better.”

Hunk looks at Keith. He opens his mouth, and then he frowns and sits down.

“It’s not about better, Keith,” Lance says, because Hunk doesn’t.

Keith shrugs. “Sometimes it is.”

 

* * *

 

 

Their next sleepover, Lance wakes up again but Keith isn’t snoring and Hunk isn’t here.

They’re crammed into Keith’s bed. Lance hadn’t noticed how much they had both grown until they had shuffled down together and Keith had tossed the blanket over them. He’s sleeping soundly, now. If Lance concentrates he can see the little changes in Keith’s face: some of the roundness of his cheeks is gone, and his jaw seems a little straighter, and there’s something about his neck—

He can’t put his finger on it. He stares and he stares and he stares, with the winter moonlight streaming through Keith’s window. He watches Keith rub his face into the pillow and he watches Keith frown and mumble something in his sleep.

No, he can’t put his finger on it.

 

* * *

 

 

“You guys know you can’t hold hands next year,” Erik tells Lance at gym. He looks ridiculous in his Easter bunny ears.

“Huh?”

Erik points at Keith across the gym. Lance looks over in time to see Keith toss a basketball over his shoulder and troop over to the wall. Even now that he’s grown, a little, Keith hates basketball. He says the ball is dumb. Lance thinks he’s just a grump.

“Me and Keith?” Lance says. He frowns. He crosses his arms. He looks back at Erik. “Why not?”

“We’ll be grown up next year,” Erik says. “Grown ups don’t hold hands.”

“First of all, no we won’t. Second of all, yes they do.”

Erik shrugs. “You guys’ll never get girlfriends if you’re holding hands with each other, forever.” He pauses. “Or boyfriends, I guess.”

“I don’t want a girlfriend _or_ a boyfriend who’s going to be weird about me holding my friend’s hand,” Lance decides.

Laughter echoes around the gym. Someone yells for Keith to get back into the game. Keith yells back some version of “no.”

Erik, finally, says: “Okay.”

“Okay?”

He shrugs again. “I guess it’s good. I just—” Erik breaks off with a sigh. “What if they’re mean, next year?”

“Who?” Lance asks.

“I don’t know. Anyone.”

He sounds nervous. Lost.

Their last year of elementary school has not been the grand affair Lance had imagined it would be. It’s been, instead, a lot of this: wondering and worrying, and knowing that something vital is changing in all of their lives.

“We’re going to be just fine,” Lance says and slings an arm around Erik’s shoulders. “We’re going to grow really tall over the summer and then nobody will ever say anything mean to us. Ever.”

Erik laughs. He pats Lance’s hand. “Okay. That sounds pretty good.”

“Think of all the math we’ll learn.”

“Oh, yuck.”

 

* * *

 

 

Lance thinks, later, that he should have passed on his father’s words. Erik may have found something encouraging in them.

* * *

 

 

Juliana tells Lance, in April, that Aaron is her boyfriend.

Lance, halfway through an apple, grins and says: “Cool! Aaron’s nice.”

Juliana nods and smiles her little smile and Lance thinks she and Aaron probably have a lot of quiet fun together.

 

* * *

 

 

Hunk turns eleven and Lance’s mother says: “Where did the time go?”

Yes, where?

Lance has a dream where he rifles under his bed and through his closet and his parents’ old bedroom, looking for time.

“Time,” he calls, like it’s a cat or a rabbit or a hamster. “Time! Come home, now.”

He always wakes up feeling annoyed. “Dumb dream,” he mutters and rolls over to go back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

In May, Kim and Lance’s father hold hands and sit everyone down in the crowded living room and look at each other and smile a lot. Lance’s mother is vibrating with excitement. Lance likes Kim’s earrings, and the new way she wears her hair. She looks so comfortable, these days. She walks with more confidence, and she speaks a little bit clearer.

“We’re going to get married,” Lance’s father eventually says, and the silence of the room erupts into laughter and “congratulations” and Isabel yells: “It’s about damn time!”

Lance realizes, then, that he loves weddings. The laughter and the light and the love of it all. He worms through the crowd of his siblings and gives Kim the tightest hug he can muster.

“Goodness,” Kim says into his hair. “You’re getting so big, Lance.”

He looks up at her and she smiles, her eyes wet, and that makes him feel a little like crying, too, but it’s nothing bad. It’s nothing sad.

“Thank you for welcoming me into your family,” Kim tells him, in that soft and polite way she sometimes speaks. Lance’s father says there are things in Kim’s past and in her life now that make her stiff, sometimes, and make her nervous.

“Oh, Kim,” Lance says and shakes her head.

“Oh, Kim!” Rachel echoes behind him, half-teasing laughter and half-encouraging disbelief.

Kim blushes and shrugs and Lance hugs her again.

(“Wow,” Keith says when Lance tells him. “That’s exciting.”

“Yeah,” Lance says. “Hopefully _they_ won’t sneak off into the woods to get married.”

“That was what Shiro and Adam wanted!”

Lance sniffs. “When I get married, it’s going to be a party.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe. There’s definitely going to be dancing.”

“Of course.”

Lance grins at Keith and Keith offers him an apple pear slice and Lance says: “You’ll have to dance with me, then.”

Keith huffs. “Will we still be friends?”

“Uh, duh!”

“Duh,” Keith agrees.)

* * *

 

 

David comes by in July. He brings his little brother, James, who is Lance’s age.

David’s hair is wild and long, and he looks both bigger and smaller than Lance remembers. He marvels at how tall Lance has grown and tells Lance that James also like whales. Lance is old enough, now, to notice when he is being shooed away.

“My brother just wants to make out with your sister,” James tells Lance when they play in Lance’s grandmother’s beautiful courtyard and garden.

“Oh well,” Lance says, and he finds that much of his crush has faded.

He and James watch a bird, for a while, and they eat sweets with Lance’s grandmother. She goes for a nap and Lance watches the tremble in her hands and he remembers his dream.

“Let’s go outside,” he tells James. “Let’s go swim.”

So they do. There’s no sign of Rachel or David. So it goes.

They wrestle in the water and Lance laughs a lot and then James promises to come play tomorrow and Lance promises to be waiting for him.

Lance spends a morning telling James about Keith and Hunk, and the school he’s leaving behind, and the playground he and Keith love.

“I miss my friends,” Lance admits. “Keith holds my hand, which is nice.”

James seems to consider this. And then he says: “I’ll hold your hand.”

It’s different, with James. James sometimes make Lance blush, and Lance doesn’t always know why, and his hand is warm in a way that makes Lance conscious of it like he never is with Keith. His friendship (his friendship?) is something new, Lance thinks. But there’s something familiar about it, too.

“What do you think that is?” Isabel asks when Lance tells her this, one sparkling evening while they study the stars and listen to Rachel and Veronica yell about a card game. Marco, back for the first time in years, is playing in the courtyard for their grandmother.

“I don’t know,” Lance says. He taps his chin.

It’s early July when he looks down at their joined hands and says to James: “I miss Keith.”

“I know,” James says, and kisses his cheek.

Rachel cries when they leave for home, so Lance holds her hand.

 

* * *

 

 

“Eleven suits you,” Keith decides.

Lance preens. He loves it when they’re the same age, and he loves that Keith rolls his eyes when Lance says this.

They go swimming with Hunk the week before school starts. Hunk tries to count Lance’s new freckles until Lance shooes  him away. They splash. They convince the lifeguard to undo the rope and Keith and Lance swing, screaming, on it and let go and fall into the water in a tangle of limbs and drowned laughter. They, somehow, talk Hunk into giving it a try and he trembles before he leaps off the little platform, his legs flailing. But Hunk climbs out of the water desperate to do it again and Lance cheers.

Shiro buys them burgers before he takes them home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cry lots. this is kind of the same james that lance dates in yltwil, and this is the same kim from yltwil. :') because my headcanons are nothing if not...consistent?
> 
> oh!! also, i have a twitter now: @zenstrikeff if you would like to see me be confused on a new social media platform


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it isn't a very long chapter but it's something of a dense chapter, i think. wow emotions

They aren’t in the same homeroom.

This sucks.

Keith and Hunk get to have French together on Thursday afternoons, while Lance gets kicked out of Spanish after day one (his friends have exactly _none_ of his pouting). But! On Mondays they have Art together, and on Tuesdays they have Food Studies (“It’s home economics,” Lance’s father grumbles often. “It’s cooking!”; “Uh huh,” Lance’s mother usually replies while Lance snickers) and the three of them get to pile together at a table and a stove in the dingy basement kitchen. Wednesdays they have class all day and it’s awful, and on Fridays they…have class all day and it’s awful.

So, they aren’t in the same homeroom but Lance gets to spend two afternoons a week with his friends all the same. And lunch, Monday through Friday.

The first week starts on a Tuesday. Keith mixes up the salt and sugar on their very first recipe (almond cookies) and Lance eats three before he can admit they taste foul. Hunk is horrified and declares Keith untrustworthy. Keith rails against this injustice. Lance drinks a lot of water.

Wednesday, they find out they’re not allowed to sit together for morning assembly but they sit as close to each other as they can. Lance makes faces at the back of Keith’s head and Hunk laughs, once and really loudly, and then hunches down in his spot amongst his new classmates. Their new school seems huge. Lance feels very small. He thinks Hunk and Keith look very small. He isn’t sure what to do with this.

Thursday afternoon, after lunch, Lance watches Keith and Hunk walk off to their French class mournfully and he goes to his Spanish class and is offended when his teacher tells him the class isn’t for him. Lance spends the rest of the afternoon dozing on a list of other electives he could take. He finds a quiet spot in the corner of the library, under a window and with comfortable chairs, and he listens to some of the older students whisper through their study hall and he thinks that Keith would like this spot. Yes, maybe tomorrow—

“You could take French with us,” Keith says when they ride home on their new rickety, rumbling bus. Lance misses their old school bus, a little, but there’s something exciting about sauntering onto the city buses like he’s far more grown up than he feels. He also likes that Rachel pretends she doesn’t know them, instead reading or talking to her friends and sitting way at the back and never looking their way.

“No,” Lance says. “You could take Dance with me.”

“No!”

“Hunk will switch for me. He’s a good friend. He won’t abandon me.”

“Don’t you _dare_ steal Hunk.”

Lance isn’t sure he’s going to pick Dance. Maybe he’ll do Photography. Or another language.

Or maybe he’ll do French. He always did well in French.

“The swim team meets Thursday afternoons,” Rachel tells them, casually and quietly when they get off the bus, a block and a half away from home.

Keith and Lance look up at her. Rachel smiles at the sky.

”You like swimming,” Keith says to Lance.

”I do,” Lance agrees.

Rachel strides between them and leads the way home. It’s a little closer for them than for Keith.

 

* * *

 

Adam and Shiro take Keith for a movie and Kim and Lance’s dad come over for dinner and Hunk doesn’t pick up the phone, so Lance feels a little stuck that night nestled amongst his siblings. Luis isn’t debilitatingly tired, yet. He brings Lisa and Lisa marvels at how much Lance has grown. He beams.

He pokes his head out the door to see if Keith is back.

“Lance,” his mother chides and grabs the back of his shirt and hauls him back inside.

He gets the sense that everyone is very grown up, these days: conversation is noisy but calm, and Lance stops himself from trying to crawl up his brothers’ backs. Kim is more comfortable, sitting on the couch with Isabel and Veronica and they chatter back and forth. Lance tries to join them and sits on the floor tugging at his sister’s socks and then he gets bored and goes to check outside again.

“ _Lance_.”

He shuffles back.

“Bored?” Marco asks when Lance sidles up to him. “Pizza will be here soon.”

Pizza is good, but is it entertaining? Lance doesn’t say this. Instead he replies: “Okay.” Marco seems to understand all the same and pinches Lance’s arm. Lance howls and threatens to draw on his face and Marco snickers and it’s momentarily, wonderfully fun.

After pizza, Marco and Lance’s father play a lilting, sweet duet. Lance squishes in between Kim and Isabel to listen and beams at his brother and father so they know he loves their music, loves the dance of their fingers and the sometimes synchronous movement of their bows. Marco keeps a purple ribbon dangling from the scroll of his dark violin and it sways when he sways, when he slips into the music and lets his eyes shut and seems to forget that he’s playing for them, just for them, and he could play a scale and they’d all love it.

Lance eats some more pizza, after, and then he eats Lisa’s crusts and then Luis picks some pepperoni slices off his second round and lets Lance eat those, too.

“Keith’s home,” Lance’s mother says eventually, casual and easy. Her smile is small but bright. “Do you want to go see how the movie was?”

Lance runs out the door. He barrels, maybe yelling a little, down the sidewalk. It pays to be loud: it makes Keith ready for him. Keith stumbles onto the sidewalk, clutching a bag of popcorn and catches Lance when Lance launches himself at him. They swirl and whirl and then Lance peels away and steals the popcorn bag and eats a handful before either of them have said “hello.”

“Hi Lance,” Shiro says, leaning heavily against the car and smiling down at them. His hair looks ghostly in the evening light, in the moonlight. The scar across his nose seems to fade into a shadow. Adam comes up behind him and touches his shoulder, light and quick and lingering all at once.

“Hi,” Lance says, beaming at them both.

“We’re going to go inside,” Adam tells them. “Don’t stay out too long.”

“‘kay,” Keith says.

“‘kay!” Lance says. And then to Keith: “Do you want some pizza?”

“I’m full of popcorn.”

“How was the movie?”

“Fun. Noisy.” Keith pauses. “Too noisy.”

“Oh.”

“Shiro’s tired now.”

Shiro’s tired a lot. Lance knows this. He understands only as much as he can. He understands, for example, the way Keith frowns as he says this, and the way he seems to rock back on his feet like he’s getting ready to look up—straight up—at Shiro.

Lance closes the popcorn bag in his fist and waves the wobbly comet of it and takes Keith’s hand with his other hand. He holds tight. Keith teeters forward again and his frown slowly warps into a small smile.

They stay like that, for a bit. Keith tells Lance about the movie—something animated and colourful (ah, noisy, Lance realizes), the sequel to something Keith and Shiro had loved and laughed at last year. The movie theatre wasn’t that busy because everyone was off to see a spy thriller and Keith got to move to different seats over the ninety minutes without disturbing anyone (he likes the different perspectives). Keith got a popcorn all to himself and Adam and Shiro shared a bag soaked in butter and Keith and Shiro had bad mall hot dogs for dinner and Adam had an egg salad sub. Shiro and Adam, Keith tells Lance with pleasure and gusto, held hands in the mall and Keith was able to weave and waver in front of them, counting tiles and judging window displays and spying on the fancy coats people wear when they want to. They stopped at the bookstore. Keith got to read in the corner for twenty minutes and then Shiro bought him a hot chocolate with cinnamon and something sweet sprinkled on top. Adam got an ice cream and Shiro had a headache.

Lance listens to all of it.

They lean together, hands clasped and Lance still clutching the pilfered popcorn bag. Keith speaks animatedly, waving his free hand and squeezing Lance’s. He smiles and he frowns and he sometimes forgets to take a breath and all this—all this—makes Lance realize that Keith had been storing away tidbits, constructing a narrative just for Lance, just to tell Lance.

Lance is easy with his “I love you”s. One sticks to his tongue, now, waiting for its chance to spill out into the space between them and to spark a happy light in Keith’s eyes and in Lance’s throat. He stops, though. He swallows it down, once—twice—three times.

“Anyways,” Keith says, finally, letting out a long breath. He looks at the sidewalk and then at the sky and then at their hands and then finally back at Lance. Lance grins at him. “What’d you do?”

It feels like they haven’t seen each other in days.

“I missed you,” Lance says with a shrug.

“We just saw each other!”

“Don’t be a poo!”

“I’m not being a poo,” Keith grumbles.

Lance hums. “Maybe we need something new to call each other.”

“How about: Keith and Lance.”

“Great! I’ll be Keith. You’ll make an okay Lance.”

Keith scowls and Lance laughs and swings their hands once.

“I should go back,” Lance says.

“Yeah,” Keith sighs. “I should go in.”

“Okay,” Lance says and it feels a little like he’s filling in space to drag out the moment just long enough for the words to unstick and flutter free and he spits out: “I love you, Keith.”

Keith, true to form, hunches and blushes and mumbles: “I love you, too.”

So Lance hugs him, long and tight so he can he can enjoy Keith’s arms around his shoulders, the dig of Keith’s chin into his shoulder. And then they part and Lance waves and goes ten steps before shrieking and whirling back.

“Your popcorn!”

“You stole it!”

 

* * *

 

In Art on Monday, they draw each other. Hunk tries to get Keith’s chin right and Lance tries to get Hunk’s eyes right and Keith gives Lance a third eye and that makes all three of them howl with laughter.

When Keith erases the third eye, as per their teacher’s unimpressed instructions, the drawing turns out to be a pretty good depiction of something kind of like Lance’s face.

Yes, pretty good. Lance catches himself sweating and looks away from Keith’s sketch book and goes back to shading, clumsily, Hunk’s hair. He doesn’t miss Keith’s frown and he doesn’t miss the way Keith starts to doodle the third eye back in.

 

* * *

 

Months pass like this.

The ache of missing Hunk and Keith starts to go away, eventually, and Lance makes some new friends. Hunk introduces them to a girl with a pretty smile and shy eyes one day at lunch, and Shay’s just the first of many newcomers to their little bubble. Maybe the bubble pops.

Keith’s twelfth birthday is small, though: it’s just them, and Lance’s family, and Hunk’s parents, and Adam and Shiro of course. Keith gets way too many packs of polaroids and he and Lance and Hunk go outside and look at the stars. It feels familiar, again, like turning around and recognizing the street behind you with its lights and its cracks and its creeping weeds.

Keith and Hunk come to Lance’s first swim meet and they cheer loud enough for Lance to hear them, even in the water, or maybe that’s the roar in his heart— He doesn’t do great but he doesn’t come in last and Keith throws a towel at his head and Lance makes sure they both get a wet-Lance hug, despite their chorused yelling.

One day, Lance wakes up in the morning at his father’s house and he goes to the bathroom and brushes his teeth and frets at the growing curls in his hair. Then he pauses. He drags out the stool he hasn’t needed in a while and he teeters up on it and he looks at his reflection. His hair is wild and his baggy sleep clothes are rumpled and his eyes are kind of crusty. His summer freckles are starting to fade from his cheeks.

He looks bigger than he thinks he should be. He touches his shoulders and tilts his head and then hops off the stool and goes to wake up Rachel.

“Guh?” Rachel says, lifting her own wild head.

“Am I bigger?” Lance asks.

“...guh?”

“Rachel!”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

He leans in and pulls at the skin of his cheeks. “Does my face look weird?”

Rachel frowns.

She helps him with his first face mask that evening. Veronica joins in. Then they smear one on their father and he seems pleased. Marco protests when he realizes he isn’t invited.

Luis is taking “a goddamn nap, thank you very goddamn much.”

 

* * *

 

On December 29th, Kim and Lance’s father get married.

They both wear white. They seem so tall, surrounded by the silk flowers Lance had helped Kim pick. The community centre entrance is decorated with tinkling fairy lights that Lance stops to marvel at until Veronica pokes him between the shoulderblades.

It snows. It’s magical. The ceremony is quick and loving and Lance smiles and smiles and wonders when the next wedding will be, when the next marriage will be, when the next bout of laughter and starshine and magic will be.

“I like weddings,” he tells Keith and Hunk, late into the reception.

“We know,” Hunk says and pats his knee.

Rachel is dancing with her girlfriend, who has been shy but emotional all evening. She looks pretty in green and her stockings seem to sparkle as they whirl and laugh together.

“Cute,” Hunk says.

Lance thinks so, too.

“Let’s go dance,” Keith decides, hopping from his chair. He whirls around to face them both and looks very serious and very seriously out of place at an otherwise very pleasant party.

Hunk groans. “Not again! I want to nap.”

“No napping at weddings!”

“Why!”

Keith rolls his eyes instead of answering and whirls on Lance. “Lance’ll come dance.”

“Yeah I will!”

They reach for each other and their fingers twist together with ease, like they’ve practiced this a hundred times (or more). Lance takes a skipping step towards Keith and then beyond him, dragging Keith out onto the twinkling lights of the dance floor. Keith follows with a scuff of his shoes and then Lance turns around and they’re nose to nose.

Or almost. Lance is a little bit taller these days. He likes that.

He grins.

Keith scowls. “I’ll catch up,” he mutters, his voice carrying just enough under the cheery rhythm of the music. “Just you wait.”

“Uh huh, shortie,” Lance teases.

Keith rolls his eyes, and then they’re just standing there together.

Blinking at each other.

The twirl of the overhead lights in the dimly lit hall make Keith’s cheeks look warm, and red, and sharp. He’s growing, and he’s growing up. Lance doesn’t think it will be much longer before the girls at school start noticing Keith, with his dark hair and eyes and the sharp angles of his face.

Won’t that be annoying.

“Are we going to dance?” Lance says.

“I don’t know,” Keith says.

They snicker.

Then Keith holds up his free hand and smiles, wide and slightly toothy, with his palm facing out. Lance catches on quickly and slaps their hands together and Keith catches him and holds on, presses his fingertips to Lance’s knuckles. They smile at each other—smile and smile and smile—and then Lance drags Keith into a spin that has them both dizzy and laughing in moments.

“You guys are so weird,” Hunk yells from his spot, far away.

The music is so loud, and the wedding had been so beautiful. Lance thinks that he wants to hold onto this, like this, for a long time. For forever, maybe.

 

* * *

 

They don’t stop holding hands, exactly. Keith is always there when Lance reaches for him and Lance likes to think that he’s always there when Keith needs him. Sometimes they knock their ankles together under the table at lunch, and sometimes that’s enough to make Lance feel settled and normal. They spend so much of their free time together, playing in the snow or doing homework. The three of them go to their first school dance together, though they barely dance at all. It’s just so different than the weddings, so different than bouncing about together in a living room in the middle of the night while just daring the moon to come down and put them to sleep.

No, they don’t stop holding hands, exactly, but there’s a shift somewhere. It’s under their feet. It’s in the way Keith’s ankles and knees hurt as spring approaches, like his body is just waiting to expand and fill. It’s in the way Hunk starts carrying his shoulders, and the sound of his laughter in the hallway even if he’s not with them, with Lance. It’s in the way Lance tries not to get bitter or jealous when a pretty girl asks him about his friend, the one with the dark hair and the dark eyes and the nice hands.

Yeah, the nice hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :')
> 
> come follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/zenstrikeff) and on [tumblr](zenstrike.tumblr.com) if you would like to watch me make noise and wail a lot and...post previews...i guess... sometimes there are dogs LMAO


	12. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feelings intensify

Keith wakes up to the sound of rain hitting the tent.

He feels sweaty, in his sleeping bag and in his sweater. It gets chilly up in the mountains, even in mid-June, and the weather is hard to predict and the air is thin enough it feels like a sheet passing through his teeth and down his throat and into his lungs. They’ve been camping for three days, now. The mountains keep catching clouds and then it rains, sudden and hard and making everything smell like pine and wood and a smell that Keith can only describe as  _ mountain _ . This is different, though. It’s soft. It’s gentle.

It feels like a recording, like one of the white noise apps on Shiro’s phone. It’s almost too real to be anything but artificial.

Keith stares up at the drops hitting the tent roof and sliding away. He counts his breaths. He thinks he can feel the pebbly ground underneath them, the mountain itself digging up and reaching along his spine.

“It’s raining,” comes Shiro’s voice, soft and next to him.

Keith turns, struggles, and then rolls onto his side with more effort than seems fair. The sleeping bag has a way of sucking him in and leaching all the strength from his muscles.

Adam rolls over and slings an arm over Shiro, his fingers hanging and looking bizarre and loose.

“Should we wake him up?” Shiro whispers.

“No,” Keith decides.

They smile together. Keith tucks his hands under his head and burrows against his sleeping bag a little more. He dozes back off, listening to the rain and the morning start around them. He knows that Shiro watches him fall back asleep, and he knows that Adam is curled close against Shiro’s back, and he knows that the rain won’t last forever but they can love it like this, all the same.

* * *

 

They go into the township later, walking slow and comfortable. Keith leads the way, munching on a trail mix breakfast and studying the clouds and the alien messages left in the gravel on the side of the highway. Adam gets more of the smelly bite soothing stuff that he likes and Shiro picks up a loaf of bread and Keith picks out two postcards.

“Hunk and Lance?” Adam asks, peering over his shoulder.

“Yeah.”

“They’ll like that. Do you want to write them now?”

Keith considers this, and then nods, and then they go to a little coffee shop. Shiro and Adam sharing a danish and a pot of nice smelling tea. Keith has an oatmeal raisin cookie and borrows a pen from the barista. He taps it against his chin and considers his two cards. He has picked card for Hunk that says BANFF in bold print in the corner: a goat perched on a mountain ledge, with a grey sheet of rock behind it and a tuft of green-something poking out nearby; the goat seems to be looking right into the camera, unimpressed and unblinking.

Keith tugs Hunk’s postcard a little closer and flips it over so the goat can’t watch him anymore and he prints Hunk’s address neatly. The borrowed pen squeaks as he writes. He pauses and nibbles at his cookie and watches Adam steal some of Shiro’s half of the danish and smiles back when Shiro smiles at him.

_ Dear Hunk _ , he writes.  _ I think you’ll like this goat. _

His note to Hunk comes easily: a promise to bring back some maple fudge, and a brief report on their last hike, some version of “I miss you lots” that he rushes through. He prints his name at the bottom, frowns, and then adds his last name. It seems right and grown up: professional, even.

“I think he knows which Keith you are,” Shiro whispers. 

Keith flicks a cookie crumb at him. Shiro just smiles.

“This a reminder to you both,” Adam says then, waving his tea cup as he speaks. Keith leans protectively over his postcards. “We are  _ camping _ and this—” Another gesture around the cafe. “—is not camping.”

“Camping is what you make it,” Shiro says.

Adam scoffs and sips delicately at his tea. Shiro kisses his cheek and Keith rolls his eyes and reaches for the second postcard, Lance’s postcard.

It’s a mountain scene. A little bit of the range. A little peek of the township. It looks a little like this morning, when Keith had finally scrambled out of the tent and stared in wide-eyed wonder at the way the clouds seemed to be caught around them, the way the rain seemed to be frozen in place even as it soaked his hair and his shoulders. On the card, the clouds swirl and block out the mountain peaks and make the dark green of the trees seem otherworldly, or like they’d been painted. Keith had stared at this postcard for a long time, wavering between yes and no and spinning the fixture to look at pictures of moose, of geese, of the town and various mountain paths, but he had known, from the beginning: this one was for Lance.

He flips it over. He writes Lance’s name. He taps the pen against his chin.

“You can probably take your time with that one,” Shiro says, and there’s something idle about his tone that makes Keith suspicious. “You could even just slip it under Regina and Isabel’s door before they come home.”

“He’s trying to save money on stamps,” Adam says. Shiro pinches him.

Keith looks between them, then at his finished postcard for Hunk, and then at the blank postcard for Lance. “I can do it now,” he grumbles.

_ Dear Lance _ , he writes.

He crams the rest of his cookie in his mouth.

Adam slides the last bit of the danish to his side of the table.

Keith eats that, too.

_ It rained this morning _ , he writes.

It rained this morning, he thinks. It rained this morning, and the sound of it on the tent was amazing, loud and quiet all at once. It rained this morning, and he had thought of Lance, had thought of Lance and how he might stand on his toes and reach for the clouds because they had seemed close enough, just within reach, just waiting for them to fall into it. It rained this morning, and the rain had woken Keith from a familiar dream of sitting in a warm field with his friends, of Lance’s hand in his and Hunk’s voice in his ear.

He puts down the pen and frowns. He rubs idly at the table, feels for a sticky spot in the wood. Then he looks up at Adam and Shiro again and they both pretend that they hadn’t just been watching him and Keith says: “Unless you want to get going.”

“Oh, probably,” Shiro says with a wave of his hand. “Adam’s getting restless.”

“Very restless,” Adam agrees. “I’m about to eat one of you.”

Keith tucks the postcards into his novel and then his novel back into his backpack and they shuffle out of the cafe together. They make a stop at the post office so Keith can send off Hunk’s card and then they march their way back up the mountain and it starts to rain again, which makes Adam swear and Shiro say, gleefully: “ _ Real _ camping.”

* * *

 

Keith reads by the campfire that night while Adam cooks sausages (and corn) and Shiro “helps.”

“You’re not even going to eat the sausages,” Shiro says when Adam shooes him away for the fifth or sixth time.

“I’d really like my family to survive the evening,” Adam snaps.

They bicker.

It’s cute.

Keith smiles at his book and ignores Adam when he yells for him to “stop smirking” because “this is serious business.” Shiro tears into the bag of marshmallows and burns six. Probably on purpose.

 

* * *

    

Keith leaves the postcard tucked in his book. He finishes one novel and starts the next, delicately transferring the mountain scene like a precious bookmark. Lance’s name flashes up at him when he’s not careful to look away from it.

They go home three days after he sends Hunk’s postcard. They spend the morning packing up the site and Shiro and Keith wrestle with the sleeping bags for an hour. Adam insists that they won’t be stopping for a McDonald’s lunch but he’s wrong. Keith eats raisin bread for breakfast and goes for one last trek around the campground before they head out.

He carries his book under his arm and tugs his hood over his head and kicks at stray pinecones. It’s sunny but cool, up here. Lots of people and families are getting ready to leave, bustling and hustling and yelling. Keith takes a sidepath that’s familiar now: he can pretend it was worn by his feet, and Shiro’s, and Adam’s, through the woods and around the different sites and finally to a quiet place where a mountain meadow stretches ahead. He finishes his bread and shoves the emptied bag in his pocket and he crouches in the grass and studies the bugs and watches for mice.

He reads a chapter.

He heads back.

And he is painfully aware that he will be a teenager in a matter of months.

 

* * *

“Where have you been?” Adam says, poking him in the side.

“Wandering,” Keith replies and scrambles into the back seat.

Keith presses himself to the window for the first hour of their drive, marvelling at the mountains around them and then at the way they fade into the foothills and then into a ghostly presence far behind. He leaves smudges on the glass and tries to wipe them away and then gives up and kicks off his shoes.

Shiro and Adam are talking quietly up front, Shiro leaned towards Adam as he drives and Adam’s head bobbing as he speaks. He speaks with his hands and his shoulders and every movement of his head: he’s expressive and only sometimes contained.

Keith props his novel open on his knees and Lance’s postcard stares up at him. He taps the glossy mountain scene and then flips the card over and reads Lance’s name.

( _ Lance _ , in his notebook at home.  _ Lance _ , filling half the pages in Keith’s untidy printing, his sprawling handwriting, infusing the look of the numbers until he stops keeping count somewhere on page twelve.)

_ It rained this morning _ .

Keith presses the tip of his first finger to a corner of the card and feels it give. He pulls his hand back.

He digs through his backpack until he tugs out a pen. He knows it’s the wrong colour, the wrong ink, but he convinces himself that Lance won’t mind, wouldn’t mind.

_ Rain always makes me think of you _ , he writes in a crooked line as Adam drives the three of them in a roar down the highway.  _ I hope it’s raining for you, now, and you can dance around in it with your siblings. Maybe when you’re back we’ll have a rainstorm just for us. _

He pauses, feels himself waver.

_ Love _ , he writes.  _ Keith _ .

 

* * *

“I loved the goat!” Hunk says, laughing, when they talk on the phone that night. “Did you see one?”

“No,” Keith says, smiling.

“Lame.”

“Yeah.”

* * *

 

( _ Lance’s laugh _ , written on page one and three and four.  _ Lance laughing _ , written on page six and continuing:  _ there’s nothing like it in all the world. _

_ The way Lance shoved crayons up his nose yesterday _ , on page two.

_ Lance’s smile _ , at the top of every page.)

 

* * *

July ticks away.

Keith and Hunk spend a day at the new library, with Hunk’s sister keeping a sleepy watch on them while they wander the shelves and play on the computers and explore the new community rooms.

They go swimming, another day. To the zoo, another another day.

They have four sleepovers.

Lance tries to video call them but the connection is poor and all they get is a fuzzy, broken image of his face that makes Hunk and Keith equally sad. They make a sagging blanket fort in the living room while Shiro watches them and eats their snacks. Keith falls asleep leaned up against Hunk’s side, their arms twisted together and the fort feeling too small.

He tries, every couple of days, to walk his finished postcard over to Regina and Isabel’s. He never makes it. He keeps the postcard in his novels. He reads it over and over. Sometimes he blushes and flips it over and glares at the ceiling.

 

* * *

They get their school lists two days before Lance is supposed to come home. Shiro and Keith read it over together and frown at each other.

“Do you really need dividers?” Shiro mutters. “I’ve never seen you use a divider.”

“Or a ruler,” Keith adds.

“What? Really?”

Keith shrugs. “I steal Lance’s, usually.”

Shiro snorts.

They finish going through the list, agree that it’s kind of dumb, and then Shiro looks up and says: “Do you want to do something, this year?”

“Huh?”

Shiro taps the elbow of his prosthetic against the table. “Like, a sport. Or a club.”

Keith looks back at the list. “No.”

“Lance swims.”

“I don’t like swimming.”

“You love swimming.”

“I love splashing around.” Keith pauses. “Like a duck.”

“Well,” Shiro says with a huff under his voice. “Time to join a duck club. Or, you know, a book club.”

(Except that Keith likes his weekends free, his evenings free. He likes to be around if Lance needs him, or if Hunk wants to talk, or just to wander around the nighbourhood. He likes his Saturdays free, for the weeks when Shiro comes home exhausted and falls asleep on the couch and eyes his pills and pretends he doesn’t.

Every year he seems to get a little better.)

“I’m serious,” Shiro continues. He gets to his feet and scoops up the school list and drops it in the recycling bin. “I think it’d be good for you.”

“A book club?” Keith scoffs.

Shiro turns back to him and frowns. Keith kicks his feet and looks down at the table.

“Find something,” Shiro says. “You can make some new friends.”

“I have friends,” Keith mumbles.

“I’m not saying you don’t.”

 

* * *

Adam suggests martial arts.

Keith perks up at that.

Shiro says “no.”

 

* * *

The night before Lance comes home, Keith stands in front of his bedroom mirror and tugs off his shirt and frowns at himself. He looks skinny, and pale, and hunched. He tries throwing his shoulders back a little, tries standing like Shiro and waving his hands in a poor imitation of Adam.

In a novel, he’d be described as “awkward.”

He scowls at his reflection and pushes a hand through his hair. He shuffles closer to it and pokes at his cheeks and tilts his head back and forth to look at the way his neck moves.

He pokes at his spindly arms and thinks about the older kids on Lance’s swim team, with their long limbs and the firm and confident way they stand. Will Lance be like that, he wonders, in a few years? Next year?

He might be taller already.

Keith tugs back on his shirt and turns off his lights and crawls into bed and dreams of rain.

* * *

In the morning, he moves the postcard to the notebook and he tucks it in a drawer, under his sweaters.

 

* * *

Lance is taller.

He brags about it. Keith pinches him and Lance laughs, loud and long and lovely and it’s the first time Keith notices the crumbly feeling in his stomach. Lance shows Keith photos and leans close to him and eventually snatches up his hand and holds tight while they talk, while they catch up, while Keith counts the freckles on his cheeks and nose.

“Did you miss me?” Lance says, grinning wide. “Were you super, extra, terribly bored without me?”

No, not crumbly. Keith realizes:  _ butterflies _ .

* * *

 

“Maybe soccer,” he says during a quiet spot at dinner that night.

Shiro and Adam look at him.

“Maybe,” Keith says again. “Or, I don’t know, basketball. Or something.”

“You don’t have to do a sport,” Shiro says. “There’s lots of other—”

“No,” Keith says with a shake of his head. “I want to do a sport.”

 

* * *

 

Before bed he digs the notebook out from under his sweaters and he runs to his closet, sweating and feeling flushed and vaguely ill, and tosses it on the top shelf. He stares up at it.

He shuts the closet door.

He goes to bed and pulls his blankets over his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: I FORGOT KEITH’S BOOKS!!
> 
> here he is reading the house of the scorpion by nancy farmer at the beginning, and then harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban and onwards, and by the end of the chapter he’s re-reading the golden compass


	13. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is long and full of feels. my edit was kind of rushed because i wanted to get it up Now, i’m sorry.

    There are a few things on that top shelf.

    Books that don’t fit on Keith’s leaning, battered bookshelf. His winter mitts. His dad’s favourite jacket. Two of his three photo albums, full to the brim and stuffed with notes. And a box.

    Just a shoe box, for a pair of boots Keith’s never seen. When he was younger, it took all his focus to drag the wide box down off the shelf without dropping it on his head. These days, he teeters a little on a stool but tends to keep a good hold.

    In the box: a wrapped memento from the mother he doesn’t remember; photos of his dad, of his dad’s parents, of him and his dad, of his second group home; the flowers Shiro and Adam had dried as a memento of their wedding; and a bundle of cards covered in beautiful watercolour flowers.

    Now and new: a postcard, a notebook, added hastily.

    Adam and Shiro know about the box. They never touch it. They rarely mention it. Keith appreciates it, recognizes it as a huge expression of love and respect.

He often stares at it. He sits in his desk chair and folds himself into a halfway comfortable shape and blinks up at it.

(“There’s a box,” Shiro tells him when he’s older. “Sometimes, things I’m not ready to deal with go in it.”

In the box, Keith says.  

“Yeah,” Shiro continues, and taps at his temple where his hair is starting to go more grey than white, more grey than black. “Up here. It’s a good tool.”

Keith gets that, later.

“I thought you might,” Shiro says, later.)

Yeah, there’s a box on the top shelf of his closet. It’s where he keeps things.

* * *

 

They get their assignments and schedules in a posting on the only-sometimes-functional school page and the three of them pile in front of Hunk’s family’s computer to look. The desk chair is pushed back behind them and Keith swears the desk bends a little from the way they lean on it together.

“Ugh!” Lance says when they finally get to his account. “No! No way!”

Keith and Hunk are in the same homeroom this year. They high five while Lance complains, loud and long, and throws himself at the rolling desk chair.

It’s raining. Storming, really. They had to wrestle Lance away from the front door while thunder crashed loudly overhead. Hunk’s family’s cat (Frank) hisses at them, wandering in and out of the room as though waiting for them (for Lance) to vacate his favourite seat. There’s a strike of lightning that flashes bright white, kind of blue, against the window and Keith and Hunk look up at it together.

“This is dumb,” Lance pouts behind them.

“It’ll be fine,” Keith tells him.

“Whatever! I’ll make new best friends.”

“Yeah, right.”

Hunk hums while he turns off the computer. Frank hisses. Hunk scoops him up and sets him on the desk. “Let’s go do a puzzle,” Hunk says. He grins at Keith. “I got a new one from the thrift shop! A thousand pieces. And mountains.”

“More like nine hundred and fifty pieces,” Lance grumbles.

“Don’t be a grump,” Keith tells him and pokes his knee.

“I don’t want to hear that from you!” Lance scowls at him but lets Keith and Hunk drag him out of the chair and to Hunk’s room. Frank makes a soft sound at their backs as they go, settling comfortably in the vacated chair.

The three of them settle on the floor together. Hunk drags his latest, battered puzzle box from under his bed. He presents the photo on the top of the box first, grinning, and then dumps the puzzle pieces between them. Lance picks one up, sniffs it, and shrugs.

They begin, as they always do, by sorting the pieces into colours and setting aside the border pieces. The rain continues. They mumble quietly, mostly to themselves rather than to each other, and more thunder booms and more lightning flashes. It’s all very peaceful, to Keith. He even forgets, for a little bit, to feel too big for Hunk’s familiar bedroom, or to feel uncomfortable in his own familiar clothes that are starting to feel short and small and incorrect.

They start piecing together two of the three mountain peaks. The grey of the rock and the white of the snow look nice against the soft blue of the puzzle’s sky, like a picture Adam would help Keith take while they balanced precariously on their toes. Keith thinks the puzzle would be improved if they painted clouds onto it. Lance rifles through the different piles, frowns, and rifles through them some more, then finds a piece to snap onto the stretch of forest that Keith is working on. He beams when Keith looks up at him and looks incredibly like himself: so very Lance, with his freckles and his teeth and smile, with his eyes and his curling hair and his ears. Keith smiles back.

“I don’t think that piece fits,” Hunk says thoughtfully.

“It fits just fine,” Keith scoffs.

“Take that, Hunk,” Lance cheers and takes Keith’s hand, so quickly and so casually it makes those treacherous butterflies flutter and dance in Keith’s belly.

It feels like it’s been ages since he’s held Lance’s hand. Maybe he’ll never let go.

They start talking again as the puzzle starts to make proper sense: Hunk asks what Keith is reading, and Keith tells them too much; Keith asks Lance about the flights and his birthday, and Lance gets distracted halfway through each story, but neither Keith nor Hunk have the heart to stop him; Lance convinces Hunk to tell them all about his thrift shop adventure with his sister, convinces Hunk to elaborate on dumb details that make them all laugh.

And then Hunk cheerfully says: “I’m going to draw a goat.”

And Keith grins and asks: “On the mountain?”

And Lance says: “Oh, a mountain goat.”

And Keith’s stomach drops. The butterflies fall in a dead, stone-like bunch. He prods at the finished corner of the puzzle in front of him. Lance’s hand is warm: firm and solid and real, a piece of Lance that’s all for him.

He pulls his hand free and pretends to rifle through the pile of pieces they have left, frowning and tapping at the soft edges and eyeing the muted colours. The thunder’s moved further away, now, but it still seems loud, ricocheting in his ears. The rain beats insistently against Hunk’s bedroom window.

On the other side of the puzzle, Hunk scrambles to his feet and goes to his desk, where he’s tacked Keith’s postcard on his little cork board, goat-out. Keith lifts his head, swallows, and goes back to rifling through the pieces.

“What’re you looking for?” Lance asks, leaning close and poking at Keith’s side.

Are they always this close? Is this their normal?

Keith’s ears buzz.

Lance taps at his elbow, like he’s waiting for Keith to surrender back his hand, and then he pulls away with a huff.

    Hunk hands Lance the postcard and Keith tries not to look but how could he miss Lance’s smile? The way his face splits open with it, unleashes sunlight on a rain-dampened room? Lance laughs and grins wide.

    Keith drops a handful of pieces. The butterflies flutter to life, slow and anxious, and he starts to feel sick.

    Just—sick.

    “Lance—” he starts.

    “It’s a grumpy goat,” Lance decides gleefully. “It’s like Keith.”

    “It is not!”

    “I thought that, too,” Hunk says, his smile huge. “Keith when he gets up in the morning!”

    Lance laughs again, louder and longer.

    “You guys are rude,” Keith grumbles and reaches to snatch away the postcard, his cheeks flushed.

    Lance pulls away and sticks his tongue out at Keith and asks: “Where’d you get it?”

    “Huh?” Hunk replies.

    “The postcard!”

    “From Keith! From his camping trip.”

    “Yeah,” Keith says. “I sent a postcard! I thought the goat was cool!”

    “I like the goat a lot,” Hunk tells him and it makes Keith feel better, for a moment.

    “Oh,” he says. “Good.”

    “I still have some fudge,” Hunk says. “We should eat it.”

    “Is it still good?”

    “Does fudge go bad? I kept it in the fridge.”

    “We could eat it and find out.”

    “Yeah!”

    “It’s from Keith?” Lance pipes up.

    Keith thinks about diving back into the puzzle. Or running.

    “Yeah,” Hunk says, frowning. “That’s what I said.”

    Lance nods slowly and flips the card over to read Keith’s message on the back. His handwriting looks even more unnatural, now, in Lance’s hands and exposed to Lance’s eyes. Nothing like the birthday card Keith had carefully written and surrendered with an embarrassed frown that had made Lance grin, and grin, and grin, and hug him tight enough to inspire to a dream or two.

    Lance hands the postcard back to Hunk and Hunk stands and heads back to his desk and then Lance looks at Keith and says: “Did you get anyone else a postcard?”

    “What?” Keith says.

    “We’re his postcard friends,” Hunk declares as he tacks up the card again.

    Lance blinks.

    Keith flushes.

    And then Hunk comes back and they try to finish the puzzle, but Lance is quiet and Hunk is now set on fudge.

    “Lance,” Keith tries, nervous and quiet, while the three of them are huddled around what’s left of the maple fudge and a plate of maple-cream cookies.

    But Lance shoves a cookie in his mouth before Keith can continue and declares, loudly, that he needs to thank Hunk’s mom for the treat.

 

* * *

 

    Lance isn’t angry, exactly. He’s that something-else, that quiet something-else, that Keith has never been able to name. Not sad, not mad, not annoyed. It makes Lance tuck into himself, and it’s something that makes him bend a little and waver a little. It’s something Hunk and Keith both know.

    They pile blankets and pillows and Hunk’s stuffed animals on the floor to make a makeshift bed for the three of them. Hunk is careful with the corners and his friends, and Keith places the pillows deliberately for each of their heads, and Lance spreads too many blankets around them.

    “Lance,” Hunk says before he turns off the light. “Are you okay?”

    “Yup,” Lance says, squirming down against the bed.

    “Are you tired?”

    “Yup.”

    Keith hugs his knees and frowns at Lance and Lance ignores him. He glances at Hunk, who shrugs, and flicks off the lights and shuffles back to settle between them.

    Hunk falls asleep first, turned towards Keith and snuggled into his pillow. The rain is just a light patter, now; it probably won’t last into the morning. Keith’s head aches from all the sugar.

    He doesn’t know if Lance falls asleep.

    But he knows that Lance wakes him, hours later, when it’s pitch-black in Hunk’s bedroom and quiet except for Lance whispering: “Keith. Keith!”

    Keith thinks he’s dreaming at first. And then he thinks he’s dying.

    Lance tugs at his shirt. “Wake up!”

    “‘m awake,” he mutters and bats away Lance’s hands. “Awake!”

    Lance, on his knees, settles back on his ankles and crosses his arms. Keith’s eyes adjust slowly and he can see the shape of Lance’s crossed arms and the tilt of his head but not his eyes, or his mouth, or his cheeks.

    Keith leans up on his elbows, blinking slowly.

    Hunk, next to him, grumbles something indistinct and rolls away.

    “What is it?” Keith says. “Are you okay?”

    “Did you get me a postcard?”

    “Huh?”

    Lance huffs. “Am I a postcard friend?”

    “I don’t know what that means,” Keith mumbles.

    “Did you get me a postcard!”

    He thinks he could lie, now, if he wants to. He could say “no, lance” or “sorry, lance” or “maybe next time, lance.” But his mouth is dry and his head is spinning and he’s never, really, been able to lie well, least of all to Lance.

    So he says: “Of course I did.”

    “Oh,” Lance says. The shadowy shape of him sags. He pokes twice at Keith’s shoulder and Keith rolls his eyes and shuffles a little closer to Hunk to make room for Lance.

    “There’s more room on the other side.”

    “Shush, you’ll wake Hunk!”

    “You guys suck,” Hunk moans.

    Lance snickers and steals a little more than half of Keith’s pillow and settles down. Keith sighs and joins him so they’re nose-to-nose. He still can’t see much of Lance but he imagines the blue of his eyes flashing in the darkness. A beacon to keep to Keith grounded.

    “I can’t wait to see it,” Lance sighs and reaches for Keith’s hand.

    And Keith lets him twist their fingers together, and feels his heart thud in his chest, and listens to Lance’s breathing even out as he falls asleep.

    For the first time, but not the last, Keith whispers to Lance’s sleeping face: “I love you.”

   

* * *

 

    Which makes him want to go outside and scream, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.

 

* * *

 

    The next day, Regina picks up Lance and Keith and smiles and nods while they (mostly Lance) tell her Everything about the sleepover.

    “How much fudge did you boys eat?” she asks.

    “Not that much,” Lance scoffs.

    “There were cookies,” Keith mumbles.

    Regina laughs.

    Keith thanks her over and over for the ride, and Regina calls him “sweet” and kisses his cheek, and Lance hugs him tight enough that they almost fall over, and then Keith goes home.

    He counts his steps home, three doors down: one, two, three, four—

    “Welcome home,” Shiro calls while Keith kicks off his feet.

    “I made chili!” Adam yells.

    “Vegetarian chili.”

    “Oh yeah, heaven forbid there’s no meat in a dish.”

    “‘A dish,’ he says.”

    “A dish is a dish!”

    “A dish is a plate.”

    Keith wanders into the kitchen, clutching his backpack to his chest and wiggling his toes to make sure he’s still alive. Shiro and Adam continue their bickering.

    “A dish is for food.”

    “Yes, like a plate.”

    “Keep talking and you’ll get nothing but lettuce.” Adam pauses. “It’s probably better for you.”

    “Lettuce! Are you threatening me?”

    “I love him,” Keith blurts.

    And Shiro and Adam, standing at the stove, turn to look at him.

    “Huh?” Adam says.

    “What?” Shiro says.

    “I love him,” Keith says again, quieter now. “I love him—so much.”

    “Oh,” they say together, and then grimace.

    Keith’s shoulders slump.

    “Would you like some cheese?” Adam asks after a moment.

    “No, thank you,” Keith mutters.

    “Do you want to talk about it?” Shiro asks.

    “No, thank you.” Keith rocks on his feet, shakes his head, and then scowls. “I’m going to go upstairs.”

    “Okay,” Shiro says. “We’re here if you need us.”

    “I know.”

    He shuffles up the stairs and to his room and shuts the door and promptly bursts into tears.

    It’s infuriating. He feels like punching something. He feels like screaming. He feels like laying on the floor and daydreaming about holding Lance’s hand but that makes him feel even angrier, like he could climb the walls and tear the paint from the plaster and eat all his books. It isn’t fair, suddenly, that Lance holding his hand isn’t the same as Keith holding Lance’s hand.

    He wishes he could clean his brain. Just scrub it clean.

    Keith sighs and drops his backpack onto his desk and tugs off his socks and looks at his closet.

    He stares at the box for a long time.

    And then he goes to wash his face and heads downstairs to eat dinner.

    And maybe a little cheese.

 

 

* * *

  

  Lance doesn’t mention the postcard for a while.

    He does “petition” the administration office to let him change homerooms. They tell him to go away four times.

    Luis comes in and does a fine job of impersonating their father and Lance gets to switch homerooms and slides his way into Keith and Hunk’s classroom, yelling: “I did it!” He reports that Luis received three (3) high-fives for his “fine work”: one from Lisa, one from Alex, and one from Lance himself. Regina had apparently sighed four (4) times.

    Lance spends a day confused: “We have a test next week? Already?”

    But when Hunk suggests he shouldn’t have switched homerooms two weeks into the year, Lance huffs and swears revenge, which Keith understands to mean “doing really well on the test.”

    A week later, Lance waves his perfect score in their faces and Keith has to fight to keep from laughing while Hunk says: “Holy cow, you did it.”

    “I’m very smart!”

    “I know! But, like—you got all of them right!”

    “I’m _very_ smart!”

    Lance is. He’s wonderfully intelligent. He’s funny. He sits two seats behind Keith and they’ve convinced Alyssa to be their note-carrier, so Keith gets a note at least once a day filled with Lance’s impressive doodles and bad jokes. The three of them realize they can do every group project together, if they want, and that they get to play dodgeball together in P.E. again, and it all seems—perfect.

    Lance is so good at asking for what he wants.

   

* * *

 

    Keith starts to forget about the postcard. He stops staring at the box in his closet before he goes to sleep, and he stops waiting for Lance to come and ask after it. He starts to look forward to his birthday.

    Alyssa asks if he’s going to have a party, smiling shyly at him.

    “No,” Keith tells her.

    “She wants to go to your birthday party,” Lance tells him at lunch, waving a fork. “She likes your dumb hair!”

    “Your hair’s not dumb,” Hunk tells Keith.

    “I know,” Keith says. “Thank you.”

    “Fine, it’s not dumb,” Lance allows. “But you’re kind of dumb! She likes you!”

    “Alyssa?” Keith says.

    “Uh, yeah! That’s what I’m saying.”

    Which makes Keith wish, just for a moment, that Lance would shyly ask if he’s going to have a party. Which then makes Keith wish, just for a moment, that someone would punch him.

    “Well,” he grumbles at his lunch. “I don’t like her.” He pauses. “Well, not like that. She’s nice, I guess.”

    Lance rolls his eyes but drops it. Keith manages not to ask if Lance likes anyone, right now, and Hunk changes the subject.

 

 

* * *

 

    Oh, and Keith somehow makes the volleyball team.

    He’s the shortest member.

    Adam tells him to “kick ass.”

    And that’s what he aims to do.

    Shiro tells him to “be patient.”

    He tries to do that, too, tries to stay focused on getting better for next practice, for next year, for next after next after next.

    Hunk promises he won’t miss a game.

    “But I don’t even play,” Keith tells him.

    “You will! I know it!”

    Keith appreciates his faith.

    Lance leaves him encouraging notes in his locker, in his textbooks, in the mail slot at home.

    Keith keeps every single one.

 

 

* * *

 

    Things are good. Just good.

    He feels like his crush is under control, more or less. He can live with the butterflies, with the way his heart picks up in those increasingly rare moments they hold hands at school, in the less rare moments they hold hands at the park and talk about nothing. He thinks, once, about playing with Lance’s hair, but the thought makes him less panicky and more cheerful, so he just smiles and Lance smiles back without asking why.

    He sleeps with his back to the closet.

    He waits for thirteen.

 

* * *

 

    October 1, it rains _and_ snows. It’s awful. Adam complains about it and Keith nods along with every word while Shiro just shakes his head and smiles at them. It’s already getting dark early, night bleeding into the daytime sky and leaching away the sunlight. Keith doesn’t mind: he kind of likes the dark, kind of likes the long winter nights.

    October 1, it’s dark enough to feel late and it’s raining _and_ snowing and Adam is complaining at Shiro in the kitchen when Lance knocks on their door and Keith goes to answer it.

    “Lance,” he says, smiling through his surprise. “Hi.”

    “Hi,” Lance says, tugging at his hood. He shuffles through the door and around Keith.

    And Keith’s smile falls away, because there it is again: that something-else.

    “What’s wrong?” he asks.

    Lance turns to look at him, frowns, and then turns away and shoves back his hood and shivers. “Nothing,” he mutters.

    He’s a better liar than Keith, he’s a more willing liar than Keith.

    “Lance,” Keith starts.

    Shiro pokes his head into the hall and waves. “Hi Lance.”

    “Hi Shiro.”

    “Hi Lance,” calls Adam.

    “Hi Adam.”

    Lance kicks off his shoes.

    “Do you want to stay for dinner?” Shiro asks.

    “No, thank you,” Lance replies. “I just wanted to talk to Keith.”

    Shiro nods and ducks back out of sight.

    “About what?” Keith asks after a moment.

    Lance shrugs. He kicks his shoes to a halfway-neat spot against the wall, by Keith’s favourite sneakers and Adam’s least-favourite dress shoes.

    “Lance.”

    Lance shrugs again and then whirls away and grabs Keith’s hand. “Come on,” he mutters and drags Keith towards the stairs, and then up them, and all the way to Keith’s bedroom.

    The butterflies panic, deep in Keith’s belly.

    Lance pulls him all the way to the center of his own room, and it makes everything seem alien and wrong, suddenly. Keith’s bed suddenly isn’t his own, half-made and against the wall, and his desk suddenly isn’t his own, and his framed gift of Lance’s own art suddenly isn’t—

    Lance squeezes his hand and turns to face him and Keith doesn’t recognize the expression on his face; Lance, too, is alien.

    “Did you get me a postcard?” Lance asks.

    The butterflies flutter themselves into a hurricane, and then die.

    “Yes,” Keith says.

    “Where is it?”

    “What?”

    “The postcard.” Lance tilts his head. “The one for me.”

    “It’s—”

    But the words die in Keith’s throat and he flushes and he feels like he can see the pink on his cheeks, somehow, and like he can feel the chilling-sweat to his skin.

    He swallows.

    Lance bites his lip. He rubs his fingers against the back of Keith’s hand. “You shouldn’t lie to me,” he mutters.

    “I didn’t.”

    “I’m your friend,” Lance continues. “I’d be a little mad, yeah, but I’m madder now ‘cause you didn’t tell me the truth.”

    “I didn’t lie,” Keith says, and Lance frowns at him and Keith’s heart thuds in his chest like it’s trying to escape. He thinks about pulling his hand away, just tearing away from Lance entirely and climbing out the window into the bad weather, but instead he carries on. “I got you a postcard. I wrote you a postcard! I just— didn’t send it.”

    Lance blinks at him. He frowns some more. “That’s weird, Keith.”

    “Like I don’t know that.”

    “I think you’re lying.”

    “I’m not! I’m really not.”

    “Then where is it?”

    Keith freezes. He licks his lips. “It’s here,” he mumbles.

    “What?” Lance takes a breath and then brightens, his smile twitching into place and his hand squeezing Keith’s. “Can I see it?”

    “No.”

    “What!”

    “No,” Keith insists. “I don’t want you to see it.”

    “But it’s _for_ me.”

    “I don’t want you to see it,” Keith says again, and something new and horrific and frightened is clawing at his insides. “I’m serious, Lance.”

    (It’s guilt, he realizes later. It’s fear.)

    They stand there, looking at each other, for a long time. Keith feels increasingly sick and sees himself throwing up on Lance’s feet, over and over and over. He wants to shuffle close and bury his face against Lance’s neck and just hug him, just be close to him.

    “Okay,” Lance says eventually. “Fine.”

    Keith’s shoulders slump.

    Lance looks down at their hands, takes a deep breath, and looks back up. “I thought— I didn’t know you kept things from me,” he says.

    “I have a box of secrets,” Keith mumbles.

    “Oh.”

    “Not just— Nobody knows them, you know. They’re just for me.”

    “Oh.”

    “Yeah.”

    Lance scratches at his neck. Keith hears him swallow. “I’d been waiting for it, is all,” he says quietly. “I was excited to see it, you know?”

    “Kind of. I’m sorry.”

    “I guess I just thought—” He breaks off and shakes his head. “You’re special to me so I thought I was, you know, special to you.”

    Keith’s eyes burn. He wants to say it. He wants to run. He wants to lay down on the floor.

    “I love you, Lance,” he says, more earnestly than he’d meant to.

    But Lance just sighs and says: “I love you, too.”

 

 

* * *

    

Special.

 

 

* * *

 

    Lance goes home with a small smile and a wave. Keith watches him go from the open door: watches Lance run down the sidewalk, watches him slip twice, watches his arms flail and his shoelaces flap. He looks familiar and not. He’s so tall now.

    Keith closes the door and presses his hands against it and breathes, just breathes.

    “Keith?” Shiro says to his back. “Is everything okay?”

    “No,” Keith replies.

 

 

* * *

 

    He’s angry, when he gets back to his room an hour later. He can’t speak. He doesn’t try, anyways. It’s not fair, he thinks.

    It’s not fair.

    He drags the box down from the shelf and he tosses the lid over his shoulder. He sets the flowers on his bed, gentle and fearful. He tosses the wrapped memento next to them and tugs out the notebook and sits at his desk and he writes, his hands shaking: _I love you, Lance_.

    He pauses, breathing heavily.

    He flips the page.

    And then he closes the notebook and stalks back to the box, waiting on his bed, and he pulls out the postcard and he stares at it and stares at it and stares at it. He could tear it up. Make it disappear. Maybe he could burn it. Maybe he could drag his dad’s jacket from the shelf and stuff it in a box and mail to nowhere. Maybe he could toss his mother’s non-memory out the window and watch it vanish.

    He looks at the flowers and he manages not to cry.

    He looks at his albums and he picks them up and hugs them, one at a time, and hugs all the memories and images tucked within them.

    He returns to the postcard and reads it again: _It rained this morning_.

    _Lance, It rained this morning_.

    He sets it aside and takes a huge breath and looks back into the box and—

    He tilts his head.

   

 

* * *

 

    He’s up too late.

    Shiro comes in and finds him on the floor, surrounded by the failed birthday cards and wearing his dad’s jacket.

    “Try to sleep,” Shiro tells him, touching his shoulder. Keith nods and Shiro leaves him be, leaves him to sort through his box of secrets.

    How long, he wonders. How long—

    It’ll pass.

    Keith zips up the worn leather coat and hunches deeper inside it and breathes in the familiar smell of it.

    People always leave, he thinks.

    It’ll pass, he thinks.

    He’s too young to know anything about anything, about this or that—

    He hugs his knees. He rubs his chin against the fabric of his pants and feels the soft scratching of it.

    “Stupid,” he mutters. “Super, super stupid.”

    Lance develops crushes and abandons them every other week. Hunk has never mentioned one or walked into a wall looking at a girl, and Keith is pretty sure Hunk hasn’t stayed up being angry and uncomfortable and feeling dumb.

    If he wanted, he knows, he could get up and wander down the hall and wake up Shiro and ask him: “Were you mad all the time when you realized you liked Adam?” But he’s also pretty sure Shiro would say “No, Keith” and “Go to sleep, please, Keith.”

    He should sleep.

    He gathers up the cards and stands and sets them back in the box. He scoops up the memento, and then the flowers. He shrugs out of the jacket and folds it up and pushes it back to its place on the top shelf of his closet. When he turns back, all that’s left on his bed is his notebook and the postcard, his sleep clothes waiting for him and his novel splayed open by his pillow.

    He’s cold, now, without the jacket and in his t-shirt. The rain-snow is proper snow now, falling softly outside his bedroom window. He imagines he can hear Shiro snoring from down the hall, and Adam talking quietly in his sleep, and both of them resting peacefully. Three doors down, Lance is probably sleeping.

    Lance, who is special in every way, to Keith.

    He tugs once at his hair and sighs hugely and then storms his way to the bed before his nerve dies. The butterflies roar to life, less butterflies and more dragons now, clawing and dancing around his belly and along his ribs. Keith grabs the notebook and turns his back to his bed again and goes to his desk.

    The flimsy plastic cover of the notebook seems loud as he drops it onto his desktop. He flinches, hunches his shoulders, and waits for Shiro or Adam to wake.

    And then he sits, flips open to a blank page, ignoring all his lists and all his words as he goes.

    He means to write in blue, but it feels wrong, so he writes in red.

 

 

* * *

 

    _Dear Lance_ , he writes. _You’re special to me. There’s no one in the whole world like you. I think about you all the time, lately, and it’s kind of embarrassing and very scary so I worry that eventually I’m going to want to run away but where would I even go? You’re everywhere and I like you that way._

 

 

* * *

 

    He falls asleep staring up at his stars, scattered across his ceiling and filled with memories.

    “Keith,” Adam says in the morning, waking Keith well after his alarm was supposed to go off. He smiles when Keith rolls over and looks up at him, frowning. “‘morning, kiddo. You want a ride?”

    “Huh?”

    “To school?”

    “Oh,” Keith mumbles, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah. Yes, please. Thank you.”

    “You don’t have to thank me,” Adam says, still quiet but laughing now. “That’s why I’m here.”

    “To drive me?”

    Adam just smiles and leaves him to get ready and Keith gets to school, just in time, with a fast food breakfast warm in his belly and Adam’s bad jokes in his ears.

 

 

* * *

 

    _I think I love you. It’s weird. I can’t say for sure but I want to say for sure that I do, so I want to tell you that I love you but how? I guess I don’t. What would even happen if I did. I don’t know. I’m happy just holding your hand a lot even if it’s not the same for you. I don’t want to make you sad_ , he writes. _I never want to make you sad. I hope you’re always smiling._

 

 

* * *

 

    Lance is normal, more or less. Keith waits for him to be angry, or cold, or that something-else, but he grins at Keith when he slides into their classroom and he passes Keith a note via Alyssa that says “good morning” with an impressive dog wagging its tail. Keith tucks it in his novel and tries to hide his smile while they’re supposed to be doing math.

    “You slept in,” Lance says teasingly at lunch, poking him in the side.

    “A little,” Keith admits.

    “Sleep is good,” Hunk tells him, soothing and kind.

    They watch the snow as it falls and falls and falls.

   

* * *

 

    _You and Hunk are the best friends I’ve ever had. That’s why I love you. And because you smile so brightly, and your eyes are very blue, and your laugh is very loud. I love to hold hands with you, and watch movies with you, and run down the street with you. I love how you laugh at your own jokes (sometimes they’re not funny but you laugh anyways) and how you can make friends with anyone and the way your face looks when you’re drawing. I love how smart you are and how high you can jump and how fast you can run. I love you_ , he writes. _I love you_.

    And it feels okay so he writes it again: _I love you_.

    _Love_ , he writes at the end when his head is out of words and ideas. _Keith_.

    And then he closes the notebook and tucks it back into the box and he shoves the box back onto the shelf and he decides that soon, he will feel better. He leaves the postcard on his desk, mountain-up.

    It’ll go away, eventually.

 

 

* * *

 

    Keith turns thirteen and all he wants to do is hang out at home with his friends, and with Shiro and Adam, and to say hello to all of Lance’s siblings. His birthday falls on a Wednesday so he waits until the weekend for his “party,” but Hunk brings him cupcakes and the three of them eat them in the cafeteria.

    Hunk hugs him, over and over. He says he’s going for thirteen hugs, but one of them loses count and nobody minds.

    “Happy birthday, Keith,” Lance says when they part ways at the end of the day, and he throws his arms around Keith’s neck and Keith catches him just barely and it’s the most affectionate they’ve been, probably, at school.

    Keith doesn’t say he’s counted the days since they last held hands (nine) and he doesn’t say that he’s reluctant to let go but he does say: “Thank you, Lance.”

    On the weekend, everyone shows up to wish him well and congratulate him on becoming a teenager. He gets books and an ice cream cake and feels flushed and pleased and very young through all of it. Hunk and Lance are glued to his side the whole day and he thinks there’s nothing more perfect than that.

    Hunk gives him a battered box set of detective novels he found at Keith’s favourite used bookstore. Excitedly, he shows Keith the notes someone else wrote in the margins and left on post-its at random points. “It’s many stories in many books,” Hunk tells him, grinning wide.

    “I love it,” Keith manages, choking a little on his smile.

    Lance is more shy, biting his lip and rocking on his feet. “I drew you something again,” he says sheepishly, and Keith’s heart soars and the dragon-butterflies—the dragonflies—swoop and cheer in his belly. Lance hands him the package, firm and heavy like he’s framed his drawing already. The wrapping is birds, fluttering and flying and looking ready to leap off the page.

    Keith drags his fingers against the paper and swallows. “It’s pretty,” he says.

    “That’s just the wrapping paper!”

    He doesn’t tear into it, but everyone’s used to this: Keith loves to keep his wrapping, every tissue paper and piece of tape and dollar store bow. He peels away the careful creases, likely wrapped by Veronica or Marco with their steady hands and confident wrapping, and he refolds the wrapping before he’s even looked at Lance’s actual gift.

    The drawing is the three of them. Keith’s own smiling face looks up at him, his cheeks looking a little flushed and his hair more than a little wild. Lance and Hunk have sandwiched him in a huge hug and he knows—just knows—what that feels like.

    He looks up and Lance hums and looks away and Hunk drags Keith into another hug.

    “Someone’s gonna cry,” Hunk sniffs.

    It’s Hunk. But Keith and Lance make a big show of hiding their own tears.

    Keith reaches for Lance and finds his hand, twisting their fingers together and making Lance beam and lean towards him, and they hold hands for the first time in twelve days.

    Twelve days.

    Never again, Keith thinks while he looks at the drawing of the three of them and Lance’s name printed neatly in the corner. Never again.

 

 

* * *

 

    He cuts just enough of the bird wrapping paper to wrap the postcard. He isn’t as practiced as Marco or Veronica, but he’s patient and careful with it. On Monday, he brings the wrapped card to school and he presents it to Lance outside their lockers.

    “Huh?” Lance says.

    “It’s for you,” Keith says, keeping his shoulders squared and his jaw clenched.

    “Huh?” Lance says again, but takes the little package very carefully. “What is it?”

    “It’s a present,” Hunk scoffs behind him. “Just open it.”

    “It’s your postcard,” Keith tells him.

    Lance doesn’t look up. He presses his fingers to the edges, drags his thumbs over the birds. “I thought you didn’t want me to see it.”

    “It’s yours.”

    Lance takes a deep breath. Hunk looks between them, blinking.

    And then Lance turns and tucks the card into his backpack and announces: “I’m not going to look at it ‘til you want me to.”

    Keith opens his mouth to say: _I want you to_.

    But instead he says: “Okay.”

   

* * *

 

    He’ll wait for it to pass.

   

  
  
  


   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter, keith reads kenneth oppel’s airborn and starts on the lord of the rings. the series hunk gives him is MADE UP.


	14. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LJDALFKJASFLJAF. a lighter, sort of, chapter, with lots of dialogue and sweet boys.

    It’s a little like they’re kids again.

    Lance doesn’t mind.

    He likes it, actually, but he has a hard time figuring out how to say that to Keith so he just writes him lots of notes and draws him lots of dogs (Keith loves dogs) and shares the good bits of his lunch with him and makes sure to smile at him as often as he can.

    “You need a girlfriend,” Lance decides while they’re hanging back from “orienteering” practice during gym, their hands twisted together.

    Keith is scraping snow off the wire fence, frowning and hunched in his big winter coat and looking smaller than he actually is. They’re keeping their hands tucked in Lance’s pocket so they have to stand close together, shoulders and elbows knocking and breath fogging together.

    “No,” Keith says.

    “Or a boyfriend!”

    Keith looks at him. “I don’t want a boyfriend.”

    Lance rolls his eyes. “One of us needs a boyfriend or girlfriend,” he decides.

    “Get Hunk to do it.”

    “Hunk says he doesn’t want to!”

    “Then leave it alone!”

    Lance sticks his tongue out at Keith and Keith shakes his head and then they troop a path through the fresh, deep snow, walking along the fence. The mall across the street has a busy parking lot, with Christmas around the corner, and the road next to the school fields is bustling and loud. They veer away from the fence and start looking for Hunk.

    “If you want a girlfriend or boyfriend,” Keith says after a while. “You should just go get one.”

    In his usual, grumpy fashion.

    “Maybe I will,” Lance sniffs.

 

* * *

 

 

    He won’t.

    He thinks he won’t, anyways.

    These days, he’s pretty attached to Keith and Hunk. It helps that they’re in the same homeroom again (finally! Lance’s own hard work, thank you very much) and it helps that Keith is on the hand-holding kick again. It helps, too and weirdly, that the wrapped up postcard sits in Lance’s backpack, tucked safely in a set of duotangs he’ll never use. All this has made it very difficult for Lance to develop another crush but he sees potential everywhere.

    Alyssa continues to be obsessed with the back of Keith’s head. Keith continues not to care.

    The three of them go to the winter dance together and huddle by the side of the gym and watch the lights flash and the older students dance. It’s nothing like a dance at a wedding. It’s a little disappointing.

    They spend a Saturday at the big mall and see a movie together and eat hot dogs. It’s not disappointing.

    They do most things together. Shay comes over to Hunk’s one weekend and is very helpful with a puzzle and Keith doesn’t even frown at her.

    Yeah, these days he’s pretty attached to Keith and Hunk, and part of that is the way Keith is always happy to hold his hand and part of that is that Lance himself never wants to let go.

 

 

* * *

 

    Sometimes he’s afraid, anyways. He’ll pull out the postcard and fight the urge to tear it open and break his promise. He’ll pace back and forth in any room with the space and he’ll lay down on his brothers’ textbooks and ignore them when they complain.

    “You guys are back to the hand-holding, huh,” Veronica says to him one day while he sighs on the floor.

    “I guess,” Lance says, blinking up at her. “It’s nice.”

    “I bet it is.”

    “It is!”

   

* * *

 

    It is. It really is. Not that they ever really stopped but sometimes it feels like—

    “Keith,” Lance whispers one Sunday afternoon when they’re supposed to be doing homework.

    Keith mumbles something incoherent at him. He’s bent over his science textbook with his hands in his hair. He has bruises on his wrists and his knees from volleyball and a scab on his chin from one of the dives he took and failed last week.

    “Keith,” Lance whispers again.

    “What?” Keith grumbles and looks up.

    Lance smiles at him. “Nothing,” he admits. “Just wanted your attention.”

    “Oh my god.”

    Keith goes back to studying and Lance leans his elbows on the table and watches him and keeps on smiling and kicks his feet. Knowing Keith has secrets makes him want to uncover all of them, dig them up and cradle them close. If they hold hands enough, if they spend enough time together, if they have sleepovers and ice cream eating contests and— Maybe, in time, Keith will share his box of secrets, whatever it looks like and is full of, maybe he’ll trust Lance enough to let him see them.

    “What?” Keith says, looking up again.

    “Nothing!”

    “I can’t tell if you’re lying.”

    “I’m just looking at my friend, okay!”

    “Oh my god! Look at your homework! I’m not doing it for you.”

    “Oh yeah, like I _want_ you doing my science work.”

 

* * *

 

    “Lance,” Alyssa says in January, a week after they come back from break. She chews at her nails, painted in a pretty green, and smiles a small and nervous smile at him. “Can I ask you something?”

    Lance thinks he knows what she wants to ask but he smiles anyways and nods his head and says: “Yeah, of course!”

    Alyssa chews a little harder at her nails, then pulls her hand away from her mouth and says: “Is Keith your boyfriend?”

    “Huh?”

    “No?”

    The wheels in his head turn and turn and then Lance sparks back to life and shakes his head. “No! No. He’s my friend.”

    “Oh, good,” Alyssa says, her shoulders sagging with her relief. “I just wondered—”

    Because of the hand-holding.

    “—because you’re always holding hands.”

    “We like holding hands,” Lance tells her, frowning.

    “Well, okay.” Alyssa pauses. She tucks her hands behind her back. “Do you—do you know if he likes anyone?”

    There it is.

    “Keith?”

    “Mhmm.”

    “No,” Lance says. “I don’t.”

 

* * *

 

    He corners Hunk before they separate for afternoon classes (Hunk and Keith back to French, and Lance to his new favourite class: Dance).

    “Hunk,” Lance says, poking his sides.

    “Stop poking me!”

    “Does Keith like anyone?”

    Hunk stares at him, pushing away his hands. “What?”

    “I think I was pretty clear!”

    “Well,” Hunk says, starting slow. “Yeah. Yeah, I think he does.”

    Secrets, Lance thinks.

    “Oh,” he says.

    “But don’t tell him I told you that.”

    “Okay.”

    Except that he wants to tell Keith. He wants to run down the hall and grab him by the shoulders and shake him and say: “ _Dude_ , come on.”

    Or: “Why Hunk and not me?”

    Or maybe nothing at all. Maybe he could just shake Keith until the words toppled out of him, until he said: “Don’t worry, Lance, you’re my best friend. Don’t worry, Lance, I won’t hide things from you.”

    “I’m going to class now,” Hunk says, patting Lance’s shoulder. “Have fun at Dance. Try not to freak out.”

    “Freak out,” Lance scoffs. “Psh! I don’t freak out.”

   

* * *

 

    He freaks out.

 

 

* * *

 

    “Hunk says you’re freaking out,” Keith says when they’re walking to the bus stop.

    “I’m not.”

    “Uh huh.”

    “I’m not!”

    Keith shakes his head and nabs Lance’s hand and holds it tight. “You can tell me, if you want.”

    Lance’s mouth is dry as he says: “Nothing to tell.”

    “Uh huh.”

    He wants to ask: do you tell Hunk your secrets? do you tell him who you like? does he know what’s on my postcard? do you trust him more than me?

    “Lance,” Keith says as they get close to the crowded stop. “What’s wrong?”

    “Alyssa likes you,” Lance says.

    “Yeah, you’ve said that.”

    “She asked if you’re my boyfriend.”

    Keith looks at him so quickly Lance swears he hears something crack in his neck. “ _What_?”

    “‘cause of the hand-holding,” Lance says, as casually as he can muster.

“Oh,” Keith says.

They come up to the bus stop crowd and hang by the edge of it. The sun is bright but getting low. The winter air is crisp but vaguely smelly. It’s that bad kind of winter, after the holidays, when it’s less magical and more exhausting and usually when Lance goes outside and shoves his face in the snow until he loves it.

They look down at their hands together. Lance taps his fingers against the back of Keith’s hand. There’s a lump in his throat he keeps trying to swallow down but he feels like he’s choking and choking and choking. He scratches at his neck with his free hand.

Keith grabs his wrist and pulls it down to his side. Lance scowls at him.

“Don’t torture your skin,” Keith tells him.

“I’m not!”

“Uh huh.”

“Stop that.”

He feels a little exposed, now, with all the crowd waiting for the end-of-day rush home. He knows they’ll be crowded onto their bus together. They’ll stand close together and Keith probably won’t let go of his hand and Lance will hold on just as tight. But are they being watched? Are people they don’t even know looking at them and making thoughts and questions and throwing them at them?

“Do you want to stop holding hands?” Lance says, quieter than he’d meant to, but Keith hears all the same.

“No,” Keith replies immediately. “Do you?”

Lance opens his mouth.

He closes it.

“Oh,” Keith says.

“No,” Lance says, panic rising in his throat and along his skin. “No! I just. Uh. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you want to hold my hand?”

“I don’t know if we should, you know, hold hands.”

“I don’t understand.”

Lance huffs a breath and looks up at the sky and then back at Keith. Keith’s face is scrunched and his mouth twisted into a worried frown, but his hand is warm in Lance’s and he stands so close Lance can appreciate the winter-stained pink of his cheeks and the spot where he chews his lip when they’re in class.

“You like someone,” Lance says. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t,” Keith says, but his cheeks grow pinker, almost red.

He’s blushing, Lance realizes.

This makes him want to smile, and smile big. It settles something in him, like a cup of warm milk before bed or a long hug from Hunk. He wants to poke at Keith’s cheeks and tease him and listen to Keith complain about the attention.

Instead, he says: “Hunk told me.”

“How would Hunk know!”

“You didn’t tell him?”

“I didn’t tell him! There’s—there’s nothing to tell!”

“Liar.”

“Oh my god!”

Keith turns away and scowls at the road but he doesn’t let go of Lance’s hand.

“We could stop holding hands,” Lance tells him, poking at his shoulder. “And then you could get your boyfriend.”

“I don’t want to stop holding hands!”

Lance smiles but Keith doesn’t see it. So he keeps smiling, so it’ll be there when Keith is ready for it.

 

* * *

 

What does Keith-with-a-crush look like?

Lance lays on his bed and stares at his ceiling and listens to his sisters talk loudly about something he can’t quite hear and he wonders: _would he know_?

Would he know, if Keith had a crush on someone? Would Keith be fidgety and smiley? He’d probably stop holding Lance’s hand.

Hunk would know, wouldn’t he?

Lance scratches idly at his neck and then catches himself and rolls onto his belly to shove his face into his pillow. Maybe Keith would walk into a wall. Maybe Hunk has already seen Keith walk into a wall and knows that something that Lance just—doesn’t.

He knows—just knows—that Keith wouldn’t tell him if he had a crush on someone.

And this makes him wants to eat his blankets.

He gets up, hugging his pillow, and goes to find his step-mother.

 

 

* * *

 

“What makes you think Keith likes someone?” Isabel asks him.

“Hunk said so.”

“Ah.”

Lance scratches at his pillow and taps a foot and then looks back up at Isabel. “Should I stop holding his hand?”

“Do you want to stop holding his hand?”

“No,” Lance grumbles. “It’s just starting to feel nice and normal again! Not that it was ever, like, bad or anything but there was that little while where it felt weird or something. Keith just doesn’t tell me anything!”

“Anything?” Isabel says. Lance can hear her laughing.

“He keeps secrets!”

“Everyone keeps secrets, Lance.”

“No.”

Isabel hums and says: “I think we should have some hot chocolate, what do you think?”

“Yes,” Lance replies, distracted. “Why doesn’t he tell me things?”

“I know it makes you sad,” Isabel says while she pulls down the creamy chocolate powder that Lance loves and heats milk in a saucepan. “But try to remember that Keith isn’t keeping things from you _because_ of you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Boundaries are important for everyone,” Isabel continues.

“Boundaries,” Lance echoes.

“Yes. You have your boundaries, Keith has his. I have mine, too. It isn’t always about keeping people out, more like keeping yourself in. Do you know what I mean?”

“Maybe?”

“It’s like Keith’s bedroom, yes?” Isabel adds the chocolate powder to the milk and whisks it quickly, one hand on her hip. “He has a door. Sometimes it’s open and you can just come in. Other times, he keeps it closed because he’s changing or sleeping.”

“Okay.”

“You just have to wait for him to decide to open the door.”

Lance considers this. He shuffles closer to Isabel and peers down at the saucepan. The chocolate smells rich and inviting, relaxing and familiar. He can already taste it.

“What if he doesn’t open the door?” he asks, his stomach rolling over and the lump in his throat scratching.

“That’s up to him,” Isabel says.

The hot chocolate helps.

 

 

* * *

 

“Keith,” he says when they’re on the way to school the next morning.

    “Yeah?”

    “You can tell me,” Lance says. “If you want to stop holding hands, I mean. I won’t be mad.”

    Keith looks up from his novel and frowns at Lance and then down at their joined hands, resting on Lance’s knee. “I don’t want to stop,” he says.

    “But if you do—”

    “I don’t,” Keith presses. “I won’t. Not ever.”

    “Oh.”

    “So if _you_ want to stop you have to tell me, okay?”

    “Okay,” Lance says, smiling. “I probably won’t.”

    “You probably will,” Keith sighs.

    “I just said I won’t!”

 

 

* * *

 

    Lance shoves his way into Keith’s bedroom all the time.

    He wonders if he should stop.

   


	15. Chapter 14

Luis and Lisa move in together in March. Their apartment is small, and almost forty minutes by bus to visit, but it’s close to campus and has a big window that they both love. Lance is one of the first people allowed to visit and he spends an afternoon sitting on their lumpy couch, doing his homework and bugging Luis while he sorts through the last of their boxes. Lisa joins him, later, carrying her laptop and her notebooks.

    “What’re you working on?” Lance asks her, shuffling over to peer at her laptop screen.

    “Oh, you know,” Lisa says, smiling a smile that’s more of a grimace. “Med schools.”

    “Wicked, Lisa.”

    “Thanks. I think so, too.” Lisa pauses. “When I don’t feel like eating a whole cake.”

    “We could go get a whole cake.”

    “You’re right. You’re so, so right.”

    “No cake,” Luis grumbles from the floor.

    “You’re a pain,” Lisa tells him. The fondness in her voice makes something melt inside Lance, with warmth spreading under his skin and that soft crackling feeling that he associates with family dancing along his bones.

    Lance grins and shuffles back to snug against the couch. He chews idly at one of his pencils and watches Lisa take notes and frown and watches Luis flip a box over and shake it. They have some pictures up on the wall, of them and their families and Lance has spotted his own smiling face and one of his drawings. They have a small, leaning bookshelf in the corner of their living space, half-full of textbooks, and their bed is tucked behind the couch and against the wall, neatly made with more pillows than Lance has ever seen Luis use.

    It looks like a home, already, even with the little mound of boxes they still need to unpack and the unbuilt dining table sitting near their kitchen. It looks like Luis lives here, and Lisa too, and Lance supposes the little apartment feels like a sweet beginning for them.

    He doesn’t know how to tell his eldest brother that he’s happy for him, so Lance slides to the floor and puts things back in the box when Luis isn’t paying attention.

    Later, they make pasta with loads of mushrooms and some sausage and eat it together on the couch. Lance asks Lisa what she thinks med school will be like, and when they will build their dining table, and asks Luis if he’s going to miss Marco’s snoring and Veronica’s morning singing. He feels comfortable, settled between them with dinner and their voices floating over his head. They never treat him like he’s a baby, or even just a child. And together, they’re quiet in a loud sort of way: always touching each other, or saying half-finished sentences that make the other laugh, or smiling and smiling and smiling.

    Lance hugs Lisa tight and long before he leaves. Luis kisses her quickly and promises he’ll be back.

    They go downstairs and Lance throws himself in the front of Luis’s car and Luis rolls his eyes.

    But then they sit there.

    “Are we going to go home?” Lance asks after a bit, grinning at his brother.

    Luis rolls his eyes again and then twists in his seat and leans one arm on the top of the steering wheel and looks at Lance. “I’m going to tell you something,” he says. “But it’s a secret. A big secret.”

    “I know how to keep a secret.”

    “I’m serious: it’s a _really_ big secret.”

    “Yeah! Okay! I get it.”

    Luis makes a small noise, drums his fingers against the steering wheel, then slaps on the typically-useless orange lights. It casts a weird glow to his skin, making him look both nervous and giddy. A little like he’s eaten too much.

    “Promise,” Luis says.

    “Promise what!”

    “That you won’t tell.”

    “I won’t tell!” Lance throws his hands in the air, huffing exasperated breaths out his nose. “I promise! I promise I won’t tell! Not even Hunk!”

    “Or Keith.”

    “ _Fine_! Not even Keith!”

    Luis seems satisfied with this: he nods his head once, twice, and then points at the glove compartment. “Look in there.”

    “Is there a present in there?”

    “Not for you.”

    This makes Lance excited enough to shout but he holds it in and punches open the squeaky compartment door. Papers, bla bla bla, a pair of sunglasses, and a little fuzzy box.

    “Oh my god,” Lance says.

    “Uh huh,” Luis says.

    Lance snatches up the box and pops it open, rubbing his fingers excitedly against the velvety fabric and the cool, round hinge. A ring, simple and pretty and immediately making Lance think _Lisa_ , looks back up at him.

    They sit in silence for a moment.

    And then Lance closes the box and looks up at his brother.

    “Big secret,” Luis says. “You’re the first one I’ve told, so—don’t break your promise.”

    “I’m the first one?”

    “Yup.”

    Lance doesn’t cry even though he really wants to, but he yells a bird-like sound and scrambles forward to hug his brother as best he can.

* * *

 

    He wishes he hadn’t made that promise, though.

    The next morning he wakes up, buzzing with energy and excitement and impatience. He brushes his teeth with gusto and puts on his favourite sweater and his socks with the whales on them and he runs down the street to Shiro and Adam’s door.

    And then he groans in frustration and turns back around and kicks some stray, melting snow. “Boo,” he grumbles at the ground.

    Not even Keith! Not even Hunk! Stupid Luis with his pretty ring and future wife.

    But thinking _that_ makes him smile away so Lance skips back down the sidewalk and heads home.

    “No Keith?” Isabel asks when he kicks off his shoes.

    “Nah. I’ll go back later.”

    “Look at you: practicing restraint.”

    “I’m very talented.”

    “I know,” Isabel says with a smile and Lance ducks his head and snickers through his blush and pleasure.

 

* * *

 

    “I have a secret now, too,” Lance tells Keith when they go to the park later.

    “What?”

    It’s slushy and messy and warm all at once. The park has puddles and snow in equal measure. Keith talks Lance out of kicking his way through all of the above.

    “I have a secret!” Lance drops into a swing and sways lazily. “From you. Ha!”

    “Ha,” Keith echoes.

    “That’s right.”

    “What kind of secret?”

    “A big one.”

    Keith crosses his arms and tilts his head and frowns at Lance. Then he shrugs and goes to the swing next to Lance. He holds himself steady and still, his sneakers digging into the soggy gravel.

    “Don’t you want to know?” Lance asks, squinting at him.

    “You’ll tell me if you want me to know.”

    “I want you to know!”

    “Then tell me.”

    “I can’t! It’s a secret, Keith.”

    Keith looks at him again. “Oh,” he says. “It’s not _your_ secret.”

    “A secret’s a secret!”

 

 

* * *

   

 

    Luis proposes in early April. It’s quiet, apparently: just them at home and finally free of all their boxes and with all their furniture built. Lisa says she cried. Luis says he cried, too.

    The ring looks lovely on her finger. Lance’s mother screams when she sees it and promptly bursts into tears and that must be where they all get it from.

 

* * *

   

    Isabel says she’s not very religious “anymore” but Easter is always a big deal for her. (She likes chocolate.) She makes a huge breakfast for everyone and insists that Shiro and Adam and Keith come over. She lays flowers on the table and puts out painted eggs for each member of the family.

    This year, on the Sunday morning, she disappears from the crowded kitchen-turned-dining-room. Everything is pastel. Lance is wearing a tie because he knows it makes his step-mother happy. Nobody’s mentioned a bunny or anything but it’s still very much Easter.

    At one end of the table, Lance’s parents are leaned together, talking quietly and hiding their laughter in each other’s shoulders, and it’s much like Before and it fits so well in the wonderful, bright mesh of Now. Kim has painted her nails a lovely blue that flashes when she waves her hands. She’s so full of energy, these days, and so less full of fear and doubt. Lance’s father keeps a hand on her knee or elbow, like a little signal that he’s always there. Shiro and Adam set Keith between them and bicker and flirt over his head until Keith is complaining loud enough to drown out Marco and Luis’s own playful arguments.

    It’s all so crowded and sweet. Lance feels like he’s eaten a whole bar of chocolate.

    And then Isabel returns with a flourish and soft “ta da” that has everyone look towards her. She strides, with that long and steady stride of hers, to Lance’s mother and presents her with a flower crown, its ribbon trailing pretty and long and the flowers looking fresh and cheerful.

    “For the light of my life,” Isabel says, and Lance’s mother giggles and accepts the crown, lets Isabel put it on her head and straighten the flowers around her tight curls.

    “Happy Easter, mom!” Rachel says, loud and bright and making all of them burst into noisy, happy nonsense.

    Isabel pulls Lance’s mother from her chair and into a kiss that they both smile through, that makes Lance’s mother’s back bend as she leans into Isabel and it reminds Lance so much of their wedding—

    They part with a laugh but hold on tight to each other and everyone eats too many sweets.

 

* * *

 

    Spring comes and goes and comes again. It’s like it and winter are in a perpetual thumb-war: snow and then rain and then sun and then a BLIZZARD and then a day so hot it makes Lance want to lay down in the sun and become one with the grass. He and Hunk and Keith plan a sleepover for mid-May: movies, Hunk insists; and snacks, Lance demands; and games, Keith suggests. Mostly, they sit on Keith’s bedroom floor and play card games that are 80% made-up and a half-baked round of Monopoly that Keith tries, and fails, to make “interesting.”

    “It’s a _battleship_ ,” Keith tells them. “It’s meant to _do violent things_.”

    “I’m a thimble,” Hunk mumbles.

    “Pick something else!”

    They decide they don’t like Monopoly very much.

    “We could make our own game,” Hunk says when they’re laying on the floor in the dark and looking up at Keith’s glow-in-the-dark stars. “We’ll put squares and violent stuff for Keith, and I’ll write all the rules so it doesn’t get out of control, and Lance can make it pretty.”

    “What would we even make a game about?” Keith grumbles.

    “You were making up rules just now!”

    “But that’s not _making a game_.”

    “It kind of is.”

    It’s so nice to lay there with them, to listen to them bicker back and forth and run a conversation away and into nothing. Lance puts one hand to his chest, over his own steadily-beating heart, and slides the other along the floor to find Keith’s.

 

* * *

 

    Hunk falls asleep first. He hogs the pillows and rolls into two blankets and snores in a lump by Keith’s bed. Keith and Lance watch him, together, for a while, Lance snickering at his snores and Keith tucking the blankets a little tighter around him.

    “I hope Hunk never changes,” Lance whispers as they shuffle back to leave Hunk be.

    “Everyone changes,” Keith says.

    “Deep.”

    Keith rolls his eyes.

    They keep going until their backs hit a wall and then Lance laughs, louder than he should, and slaps a hand over his mouth.

    Keith shakes his head but he’s smiling. It’s that tiny Keith smile that Lance knows very well, now: Keith when he’s happy, Keith when he’s calm, Keith when he’s settled and unafraid.

    They twist until they’re facing each other, heads leaned against the wall and legs shuffled closer to their chests in a mostly uncomfortable way but there’s that buzz, that crackle and crunch under Lance’s skin that keeps him awake and makes him feel like closing his eyes and also like throwing his arms open wide and laughing until he forgets how to speak, how to sing, how to breathe.

    Keith finds his hand in the dark, with just the stars looking at them, and Lance twists their fingers together. They’re close enough that it’s not a strain. Lance can scratch at the carpet with his free hand and hold Keith’s hand near his own chest with his other. He can see Keith’s smile, nice and clear.

    “I’m just saying,” Keith says then, like they haven’t been sitting in silence for minutes or hours or whatever— “Hunk’s going to grow into someone amazing, you know?”

    “Isn’t he already someone amazing?”

    “Yes,” Keith replies, serious and low and quiet. “But I’m pretty sure his potential for amazing-ness is unlimited.”

    “Amazing-ness,” Lance echoes, grinning and biting down on his laughter.

    “Shut up.”

    “ _Amazing_ -ness. You’re so good at talking.”

    “You’re rude.”

    Lance twists his head to laugh against the wall. His hair drags against the paint and his breath bubbles and crowds in his mouth and then seeps through his teeth. He wants to close his eyes and rest his way through it but he worries, briefly and intensely, that if he does he’ll miss the last moments of Keith’s perfect, tiny smile, and he worries, briefly and intensely, that he’ll never know when he’ll see that last of that smile.

    “Tired?” Keith whispers.

    “Nope.”

    “Want to finish Monopoly?”

    “Absolutely not!”

 

* * *

 

    They fall asleep eventually, after they creep their way back to Hunk and settle against him. Hunk complains, groggy and confused, but then settles back and seems okay to let them use him as a pillow.

    “Your heads are heavy,” he complains in the morning.

    “You’re not comfortable,” Lance sniffs.

    “I’m not a pillow!”

    “I thought you were comfortable, Hunk,” Keith pipes up.

    And Hunk, bless him, replies: “You’re the best, Keith.”

 

* * *

 

    He feels giddy and weird for a week. Sweaty and flushed. Like he’s been running, or dancing, or holding his breath. It’s not that different from his normal, really, it’s just—louder, longer. He wakes up in the morning at his dad’s and he sing-songs his way through conversations with his family and he all but bounces on his feet.

    “Missing Keith, huh?” Veronica says to him on Tuesday morning, sounding exhausted and a little grumpy.

    “Huh?”

    Veronica frowns at him and then turns back to their father’s sputtering coffee maker and waves a dismissive hand over her shoulder. “Nevermind.”

    Maybe he’s sick. It’s like a pulsing, under his skin. It makes his heart feel too big for his chest. He has trouble sleeping so he just lays flat on his back and stares up at the ceiling and thinks of nothing.

    He asks Lisa about it.

    “I’m not a doctor yet, Lance,” she tells him, soothing and patient.

    Luis thinks this exchange is very funny.

    By Thursday Lance is starting to get tired. He sags against their lockers and listens to Hunk talk about French class (boring) and listens to Keith complain about math (typical) and he smiles and smiles and smiles at them.

    “Are you okay?” Hunk asks eventually.

    Keith slips his hand into Lance’s and squeezes once. “You feel warm.”

    “Does he?”

    “Yeah.”

    Lance just smiles when Hunk puts a hand to his forehead and shakes his head when Hunk suggests he go to the nurse’s office and shakes his head again when Keith asks if he wants to go home.

    No, no—this is where he wants to be.

 

 

* * *

 

    A week.

    He’s so tired by the end of it. He can’t put his finger on what’s happening though he knows it’s not new. It’s like that something that pulls at his insides, sometimes, that insistent _something_ that he can’t name so he doesn’t look at it. But—better than that.

    He tries to draw the feeling. He feels pages of his sketchbook with scattered colours and looping shapes and it makes him feel a little better, a little freer. But when he looks at those pages, later, they don’t seem right.

   

* * *

 

    Keith comes over on Sunday afternoon. Rachel lets him in and Keith makes his way down the hall to Lance’s room and pokes his head in and says: “Lance?”

    Lance, midway through dumping his backpack out on his bed, whirls around. He smiles so wide his mouth feels like a gaping hole on his face. His tongue’s gone missing. His eyes are waiting to fall out. He drops his backpack.

    “Hi,” he says.

    “Hi,” Keith says, sounding amused and concerned all at once. “It’s just me.”

    “Yeah.”

    They look at each other.

    “Can I come in?” Keith says eventually, dragging his sweater sleeves over his hands.

    “What?” Lance’s brain starts working again. “Yeah. You don’t have to ask.”

    “It’s good to ask.”

    “I don’t ask,” Lance grumbles.

    “Well,” Keith says with a shrug and shuffles his way into the bedroom. “I’ve never asked you to leave.”

    “I guess.”

    Keith stops, just out of reach. “Are you okay?”

    “I’m great,” Lance replies with his too-big tongue in his too-wide mouth. “Just— sleepy. I’m really sleepy.”

    “Do you want to nap? I’ll see you tomorrow—”

    “No,” Lance cuts in, shaking his head. “No. I just—Here—” He turns away and pushes his books and his pencils and his sketchbook and a hat stolen from Marco—he pushes everything off his bed and onto the ground and steps over the mess to climb up. He shuffles back against the wall and slaps his hands to his thighs.

    “That’s a mess,” Keith says thoughtfully.

    “Like you can talk. Come sit.”

    Keith does. He clambers onto the bed and worms his way up next to Lance and stretches out his legs. He wipes his hands on his pants and wiggles his socked feet. Lance wiggles his bare toes in response and they both snicker.

    “Are you sick, maybe?” Keith asks, quietly.

    They both look out at Lance’s open bedroom door. Lance can hear his mother and sisters talking in the kitchen. He thinks he can hear Isabel on the phone upstairs.

    “Maybe,” he allows.

    He glances at Keith’s hands on his thighs and starts to reach for him and then stops.

    “What?” Keith says.

    “Nothing. Except—”

    “Uh huh?”

    Keith seems very warm, next to him. Very long. He’s grown, Lance realizes. He’s definitely grown and he’s definitely getting stronger. His wrists are battered and his fingers are long and his nails are chewed. There’s a hole developing in the right knee of his pants and his sweater sleeves are mismatched lengths from all of his anxious tugging.

    “Keith,” Lance says.

    “Lance.”

    “Can I have a hug?”

    “What? Yeah. I mean—” Keith takes a breath. “Yeah.” And then: “You’re so weird.”

    “Hugs are nice,” Lance grumbles.

    “I know that.”

    Lance shakes his head and then rolls, a little, towards Keith, latching onto his sweater and pressing his face to Keith’s neck and waiting for his own breath to stop.

    Keith makes a noise. “Okay, then,” he says.

    Lance realizes that that’s what “gruff” sounds like. He laughs and burrows closer.

    It’s awkward. It’s not really a hug so much as Lance just—smashing himself into Keith. But Keith doesn’t say “ugh get off of me” or “go away, Lance” or “this isn’t really a hug.” Keith just grunts and worms his arms around Lance and—holds him.

    Nice and tight.

    “Huh,” Lance mumbles. “I guess I just needed a hug.”

    “Hugs are magical,” Keith says.

    Lance can feel Keith’s breath on his hair.

    “Yeah,” he says.

 

* * *

    

    They stay like that for a while, until Lance’s left arm starts to go numb and he squirms away and when he’s free of Keith’s hug he realizes he feels better. Still tired, but better.

    He shuffles back on the bed and sits on his feet and they look at each other.

    “You need a haircut,” Lance decides.

    “What! No.”

 

* * *

 

    It’s a little like hand-holding but...kind of bigger? Lance tries to figure it out and then gives up and just settles for enjoying it, whatever it is.

    When that unsettled discomfort starts to bubble up, he sidles up to Keith and digs his chin into Keith’s shoulder until Keith sighs and slips an arm around him. “You’re needy,” Keith tells him.

    “Maybe,” Lance allows.

    “You’re both weird,” Hunk says with a shrug. “I guess it’s okay.”

    “Thanks for your permission.”

    “You’re welcome.”

    Lance rolls his eyes but settles against Keith.

    It doesn’t matter if it’s right there in the hallway, or at home or the park or the library, or while they’re on the bus. He leans and Keith catches him.

 

* * *

 

    In mid-June, Keith comes over one Saturday and they do homework on Lance’s bed and Lance tries to finish their last novel study and Keith practices French verb after verb after verb. He stays for dinner. He stays longer than he meant to but Lance doesn’t tell him to go away.

    It’s just how it is, sometimes. Impromptu sleepovers.

    Lance wakes up in the middle of the night, squished up against the wall and with his pencil case digging into his back. Keith is sleeping softly next to him, mouth open and one leg dangling off the bed. Lance tosses his pencil case to the floor and rolls onto his other side and frowns sleepily at Keith for a moment.

    Then he pokes him, three times.

    “Keith,” Lance whispers. “Keith!”

    “Why,” Keith groans and starts to roll away.

    “No, come back!”

    “You’re awful,” Keith grumbles. “You’re the worst. Why am I friends with you?”

    “Because I’m handsome, intelligent, and _awesome_.”

    “Oh my god.”

    Lance smiles and shuffles forward and slings an arm over Keith’s chest. Keith pats his arm and yawns. “I’m going to hug you,” Lance tells him.

    “Great. I’m going back to sleep.”

    Lance laughs against Keith’s shoulder and Keith goes back to sleep and Lance joins him.

    Though when he wakes up in the morning, they’re rolled halfway together and Keith’s head is heavy on one of Lance’s arms and Lance’s nose is full of Keith’s hair.

    He sneezes.

    Keith falls off the bed.

    “Sorry,” Lance says.

    “Ugh.”

 

* * *

 

    Keith makes his yawning way home and Lance watches him go and then has every intention of going back to sleep, except when he turns away from the door Veronica is blinking at him, seated on the stairs.

    “Lance,” she says.

    Lance rubs some sleep gunk from his eyes. “What?”

    Veronica doesn’t say anything right away. She leans her arms on her knees and looks at the floor and then the walls and then at Lance. She chews on her lip.

    “What?” Lance says again, growing nervous. There’s a shivery discomfort at the back of his neck that makes his skin feel cold and prickly.

    “Keith is your friend, right?” she says.

    “Yeah?”

    “And Keith knows that?”

    “He better.”

    Veronica takes a deep breath. She shakes her head, and then she stands and stretches. “Okay.”

    “I don’t get it.” Lance comes to the edge of the stairs and leans on the railing, looking up at his sister.

    “It’s nothing,” Veronica says with a shrug. “I just—saw you, is all.”

    “I still don’t get it.”

    “Uh huh,” Veronica says. “I’m going back to bed.”

    Lance watches her go, frowning, and then slips down the hall back to his own room. He shuts the door. He tidies up the mess of his school stuff on the floor. He drags off his pants and crawls into bed and pulls the blankets up to his chin.

    A bird is singing outside. It’s kind of nice.

    His heart beats, steady and loud and hard, against his chest. Lance rubs his chin against the blankets. He wiggles his toes.

    What, he thinks.

    What.

 

* * *

 

    What—

 

* * *

 

    “You look weird,” Hunk tells him on Monday.

    Lance slaps his hands to Hunk’s shoulders and looks him straight in the eye and says: “It’s going to be fine, Hunk.”

    “What?”

    “Everything’s going to be fine!”

    “I don’t get it.”

 

 

* * *

 

    It’s going to be fine.

    Lance leaves in a couple of weeks and when he comes back, everything will be normal. Except the next time they’re alone and rifling through Adam’s Secret Snack Stash, his chest bubbles over with laughter and warmth and he presses his face against Keith’s shoulder and says: “I’m going to miss you.”

    “Huh?” Keith says around a mouthful of chips.

    “Nothing!”

    “I’ll still be here.”

    “Don’t talk with food in your mouth!”

 

* * *

 

    It never lasts, he reminds himself. But Keith—his Keith, his friend Keith, with the disgruntled face and the messy hair and the pile of books—Keith will be here and Lance will be normal again—

    He’ll just wait for it to pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you’ve liked him for years you dummy, i say as i sob.


	16. Chapter 15

Keith’s fourteenth birthday is a cloudy Thursday. He wakes up well before his alarm, startled from a dream of eating macaroni with his dad and Lance and Shiro, and he frowns up at his stars. He thinks he can hear geese, but shouldn’t they all be gone by now? He rolls onto his side and props himself up on one elbow and peers out the window.

    Clouds. The moonlight’s starting to fade and the sky is an inky sort of blue, but he can see the clouds all the same, drifting and making the early morning seem dreamy and odd.

    Keith tilts his head and then flops down and goes back to sleep.

    Lance wakes him, not much later, by jumping on his bed and shouting: “Happy birthday, Keith!”

    Keith yells. Down the hall, Adam yells. Shiro very kindly shuts the door for Keith and Lance and Lance tries to drag Keith out of bed.

    “No!”

    “Come on, Keith! It’s morning!”

    “ _No_!”

    They wrestle, briefly, or flail their hands at each other, but Keith wins and drags Lance down and squishes a pillow against his chest.

    “I’m going back to sleep,” Keith grumbles. He squirms back under his blankets.

    Lance huffs and shoves the pillow at him. “I come all this way—”

    “All this way, he says.”

    “—just to wish you a happy birthday and this is what I get.”

    “It’s _my_ birthday!”

    “Fine,” Lance grunts and there’s some more flailing as he worms under the blankets next to Keith. “Fine!”

    “Oh my god, go away!”

    “I’m going to be the first one to say ‘happy birthday,’” Lance grumbles, rolling onto his side so they’re facing each other.

    “You already said it,” Keith sighs.

    “It didn’t count! You weren’t listening.”

    “I was listening!”

    “It didn’t count,” Lance insists.

They blink at each other, face-to-face and under Keith’s blankets with Keith’s birthday just waiting to dawn. Keith’s heart thuds away and his breath stutters and stops and Lance frowns and frowns at him, and then closes his eyes.

”Say it again,” Keith whispers. “I’m listening.”

Lance cracks open one eye. “Promise?”

“Yeah. And then I’m going back to sleep.”

“I’ll allow that.”

They smile together. Keith imagines touching his fingers to Lance’s chin, or shuffling that little bit closer so they could fall back asleep with mingled breaths, or just saying to Lance over that little space between them _I love you_.

“Happy birthday, Keith,” Lance says, quiet and slow and smiling wide.

***

At school, Hunk puts a sticker on Keith’s shirt with Minnie Mouse waving a balloon. It reads: IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!

Keith stares down at it.

Lance laughs so hard he hits his head against the lockers.

“Why Minnie Mouse?” Keith mumbles.

“It was the only birthday sticker I could find,” Hunk replies, grinning and straightening the sticker for Keith.

“Well,” Keith says. “Thanks, Hunk.”

“You’re so welcome.”

Keith tries to wear it like badge of—something. He keeps tugging at his shirt to get a better look at it, and the annoying guys from Class C make a big deal of it, but Hunk smiles and that makes Keith smile.

Hunk also keeps him from threatening said annoying guys.

“Imagine what Shiro’s face will look like if you get detention,” Hunk tells him.

Keith decides not to imagine that and instead slaps his birthday sticker and flips the annoying guys the bird.

“Oh, Keith,” Hunk says.

“That’s our birthday boy,” Lance sing-songs and gives Keith a chocolate bar from his lunch.

 

***

 

Adam and Shiro take him out for dinner. They go to the new and slightly weird all-you-can-eat sushi shop downtown: it’s nice because the ordering is done on a tablet so they don’t have to talk to anyone, and most orders are delivered by a weird and noisy “bullet train.” Adam cackles every time it zips by.

“This is so weird,” Shiro says.

“Yes,” Keith agrees gleefully and taps in an order for three jellos.

Adam eats all three.

It’s a good birthday.

 

***

 

Yeah, it’s a good birthday. He opens the day with a shower of affection from his friends—from Lance—and he ends with a huge and long hug from Adam and Shiro. He brushes his teeth and gets his backpack ready for the morning and he reads until he starts to feel drowsy, and then he clambers up on his stool and drags his dad’s jacket down from the top shelf of his closet.

He presses his fingers to the seams and the folds of the leather. He feels the cool buttons.

He’s fourteen-years-old and he goes to bed with a smile.

 

***

 

“I think you should have a party this weekend,” Lance decides the next morning, while they’re huddled in their favourite corner of the library.

“The weekend is tomorrow,” Keith says.

“You deserve a birthday party,” Hunk tells him.

Because Hunk is the best.

“I don’t want a birthday party,” Keith says, doodling on his notes. “I want to watch a movie and eat a cinnamon roll.”

“Just one?”

“Yes.”

“You’re so anti-social,” Lance sniffs.

“I’m right here, socializing with you!”

“We don’t count.”

“Why are you like this?”

Lance shrugs and tugs Keith’s pencil from his hand. Keith scowls. Lance ignores him.

“We’re starting high school next year,” Lance says, waving the pencil for emphasis. “Who knows where everyone is going! This is your last chance to make a good impression on all our—school people.”

“You make it sound like we’re dying,” Keith grumbles.

“Maybe we are,” Hunk sighs, flipping shut his textbook. “Maybe that’s what high school is: death. Lance’ll date four thousand people—”

“I will not!”

“—and you’ll probably fight at least two humans and all of my hair will fall out of my head and then we’ll die.”

“It’s just more school,” Keith says. “And we’ll always have each other, Hunk.”

Hunk drags him into a slightly suffocating hug.

 

***

 

Saturday, Keith wakes up very tired and grumpy. He’s sore all over and his head hurts and every sound seems to irritate him. He tells Shiro this and Shiro smiles and says: “A break could do you good.”

A break?

“A break.”

Keith thinks about this for a moment. Then, he takes three cheese strings and goes back up to his room and shuts the door and crawls back into bed with his book. And that’s how he wants to spend his day: reading and snuggled up on his blankets on an otherwise gloomy day. Maybe this is what Adam calls “recharging.”

Around lunch, though, Lance bursts into his room.

No, he doesn’t burst. He pushes the door open just enough to peer through at Keith and just enough for Keith to see that it’s him.

“Hi Keith,” Lance says quietly.

Keith drags one finger down his page and frowns at Lance. “What’re you doing?”

“Coming in.”

Keith thinks about telling him not to—“not right now, Lance” he’d say; or “I’ll come see you later, Lance”—but Lance slips into his bedroom and shuts the door behind him and there is he is, in all his Lance-like glory. His summer freckles are still bright on his cheeks and he’s wearing a new sweater that was probably once Marco’s and/or Veronica’s. He’s tall and he’s smiling a small, not-entirely-Lance-like smile, and when he putters across the room Keith can’t look away from him.

“Budge over,” Lance mumbles, poking at Keith’s side.

Keith does at the same time he says: “I’m tired, Lance.”

“Okay,” Lance says with a shrug and clambers onto the bed. He squirms under the blankets next to Keith and drops down. “I won’t bother you.”

“I’m trying to recharge,” Keith tells him, blurting the words out before he entirely understands them.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” His cheeks burn, a little, and he draws his knees up to his chest and squints at his book and reads none of the words.

Lance presses his hand to Keith’s side then, his palm and fingers flat and warm through Keith’s shirt. Keith glances at him and Lance smiles up at him and says: “I can help.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“You don’t know that.”

Keith supposes he doesn’t.

He relents and shuffles down and Lance pulls his hand back. They settle on their sides, nose-to-nose and smile-to-smile, and it’s familiar enough by now that Keith wonders why that hum in his ears won’t stop. He knows this isn’t quite right and he knows he doesn’t want to be sad when it’s over, but he stays where he is and he looks at Lance looking at him.

“I’m just grumpy,” he tells Lance.

“No,” Lance says, his smile twitching. “You’re tired.”

“I guess.”

“It’s okay. I can go away, if you want.”

“You can stay.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Do you want to stay?”

Lance snorts and rubs his cheek against Keith’s pillow. “I’m leaving tomorrow, is all.”

“You’re just going to your dad’s.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“We’ll see each other at school.”

“It’s not the same,” Lance grumbles.

Keith knows that.

“Keith?”

“Yeah?”

Lance’s smile falls away. He presses his face to the pillow again and reaches for one of Keith’s hands. They meet in the middle, or something like it, with practiced ease. They lace their fingers together and Keith feels Lance’s palm against his and his own fingers slotted along Lance’s knuckles and it’s wonderful and familiar. Nothing in the world is like holding Lance’s hand, or lying close to Lance and studying his eyes and his nose. Keith could say: I want to hold your hand forever. But Lance wouldn’t be surprised. He’d laugh and he’d smile and he’d squeeze Keith’s hand and say: I know that.

Keith doesn’t know how to make him hear it. He doesn’t know if he wants Lance to hear it.

“I’m going to ask you something,” Lance mumbles. “But don’t be weird about it, okay?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like!”

Keith huffs. He shifts against his bed. His book digs into his ribs, forgotten. “Fine,” he grumbles.

Lance opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He scowls. He squeezes Keith’s hand and makes the butterflies soar and flutter in a manic haze.

“What?” Keith says. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I guess,” Lance replies.

Someone is laughing outside. It sounds a little like Rachel, but Keith can’t be sure.

“Keith,” Lance says, and Keith realizes he loves the way Lance says his name. “Have you ever liked someone so much you think you’re gonna, I don’t know, explode?”

“Explode?” Keith says while the butterflies shriek and his heart thuds and clambers its way up his throat.

“Yeah. Like! You just. I don’t know. You just want to see them all the time?”

“Oh,” Keith says.

“And sometimes you just feel sick?”

“Oh,” Keith says. “Yes.”

Lance jerks. His eyes seem huge. His lips part. “Oh,” he says breathlessly, eventually.

And Keith has the good sense to blush. “Well,” he says, as nonchalantly as he can. “Yeah, you know. Yes.”

His voice creaks and cracks and he wants, suddenly, to turn into a cloud and float away.

Lance doesn’t laugh, though, and he usually finds some weird glee in the way Keith’s voice has started to creak and see-saw. Instead, he frowns and looks at Keith with those huge blue eyes of his and he looks simultaneously like the boy who pounced on Keith all those years ago and the man he might grow into in a few years.

“What?” Keith says, shrinking a little.

“Who?” Lance asks.

“What?”

“ _Who_?”

“A human,” Keith replies flatly. Lance glares. “I’m not going to tell you!”

“Why!”

“It’s a secret!”

“You and your secrets,” Lance mutters. “You’ll hold my hand and cuddle with me but you won’t tell me—stuff.”

“Don’t be mad,” Keith says.

“I’m not mad.”

“You’re a little mad.”

“I’m not going to tell you, either,” Lance huffs. “Take that.”

“You can tell me if you want,” Keith probes.

“I don’t want to.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

They frown at each other.

And then Lance asks: “What’re you going to do?”

“Huh?”

“About your crush.”

“I don’t think it’s a crush anymore,” Keith admits, quiet and disgruntled. “I think I—”

He stops. His cheeks heat a little more. And Lance waits, blinking at him with his mouth twisted and his eyes very blue.

“I’m not going to do anything,” Keith says eventually. “I’m going to wait for it to stop.”

“Oh,” Lance says, and even in that single breath of a word he sounds sad or disgruntled and very small. Something explodes in heated starbursts in Keith’s chest: a riot of his own feelings drowning out the fluttering butterflies, even for a moment.

“I’m just going to wait, too,” Lance continues after a moment. “It’ll stop.”

“Anyone would be lucky to love you,” Keith tells him.

“That’s an embarrassing thing to say.”

“No it’s not!”

But Lance smiles and shakes his head against the bed and his hair flails and curls against Keith’s pillow. “Thanks, Keith. You too, you know.”

“You should be happy,” Keith says.

“So should you, weirdo.”

“I am happy,” Keith insists and squeezes Lance’s hand as tight as he can. “This is a happy—thing.”

“A happy thing,” Lance echoes drily. “You’re a poet, my guy.”

Keith scowls and Lance snickers and they settle, together, quiet and comfortable.

“I’m happy, too,” Lance says.

 

***

 

Keith falls asleep, eventually, that first Saturday afternoon of his fourteenth year. He pulls the blankets over their heads and he tries to keep his eyes open but he drifts off, slowly, with Lance’s hand in his and Lance’s smile so close to his.

He thinks he dreams that Lance wakes him with a poke to his cheek and Keith bats his hand away sleepily. “Keith,” Lance whispers. “Wake up.”

But Keith’s eyes are heavy and his head is foggy and he grumbles something incoherent.

“I love you,” Lance tells him.

“I love you, too,” Keith mumbles.

 

***

 

Adam pulls the blanket away, later, and both Keith and Lance grumble at him.

“You should get home, Lance,” Adam says, and Keith looks up at his smiling face and sees dying sunlight flash against his glasses.

“‘kay,” Lance groans and rolls away. Adam steps out of the way and Lance _thunks_ to the ground. Keith scrambles after him, rubbing at his eyes, and the three of them go downstairs together and Lance hugs Keith tight before he goes.

Adam and Keith watch him make his stumbling way home together. Adam puts his hand to Keith’s head and drags his palm over Keith’s hair like he’s eight, again, like he’s smaller than he is. And Keith’s okay with it, just then.

“Feel better?” Adam asks.

“Yeah.”

 

***

 

He’s in this weird place, now, where he doesn’t know what’s normal and what’s new. He’s not quite a kid anymore, but he’s nowhere near a man. It makes him feel a little lost. Sometimes he gets up and looks in the mirror and tugs at his hair and touches his lips and bares his teeth and wonders if that’s really him—as in, _really_ , absolutely him.

When did his clothes change? When did his shoulders shift? Where did this little burst of height come from?

And why, of all the things to stay, do the butterflies continue to tumble and roll around his belly like he hasn’t grown at all?

 

***

 

Loving Lance is easy, though; it gets easier every day.

 

***

 

The Fall dance is rescheduled twice. Lance threatens to riot.

“We don’t even like dances,” Keith grumbles, sprawled across his desk during math and scowling at Lance’s shoulders.

“Speak for yourself,” Lance retorts, twisting in his seat. “ _Some_ of us like parties.”

“It’s not a party. It’s a dance.”

“What do you think a dance is!”

“It wouldn’t be so bad,” Hunk says. “We can go together and make faces at the ceiling and watch the little ones sweat and titter.”

“Titter,” Keith echoes thoughtfully. “Good word, Hunk.”

“Thanks, Keith.”

Lance rolls his eyes at both of them and tugs Keith’s sheet of review questions out from under his head. He looks it over.

“You haven’t done any of them yet?”

“Ugh,” Keith says by way of explanation.

“Oh my god. Sit up and I’ll help you.”

“I’m beyond help.”

“Yes. But sit up anyways.”

Lance turns around fully in his seat and they lean their heads together and go over the questions that both bore and pain Keith. He makes sure Lance hears every sigh but he doesn’t complain when Lance walks him through this question, or that wrong answer, or where this might show up on the test later this week. Lance is so careful, and smart, and generous: he guides Keith’s attention to the right places and he teases when Keith’s mind starts to wander but he’s the most distracting thing in the room, close enough for Keith to touch. He could touch Lance, if he wants to. He could feel the bones in his wrist and study the length of his fingers up close and Lance would just hum or laugh and call him odd, or weird, or soft.

Maybe Keith is soft.

Lance says something both sweet and funny and Keith turns his head away to point his smile anywhere else and he sees Hunk, slouched in his seat and watching them.

“What?” Keith says.

Lance looks up. “Huh?”

“Nothing,” Hunk says, and smiles slow and wide. “You guys carry on.”

“‘kay,” Keith says.

“Math,” Lance insists, tapping at the review questions.

And at lunch they are told, vehemently, that the final date for the dance is in two weeks.

 

***

 

During French, Keith and Hunk huddle together in a back corner and Keith chews his fingers and then his pens and then Hunk says: “I have a suggestion.”

“Uh huh,” Keith says, mulling over a botched translation from last week.

“Don’t freak out.”

“Uh huh.”

“I think you should ask Lance to the dance.”

“Huh?” Keith rubs his pen lid against his teeth and then sighs and gives up on his review. He twists to look at Hunk. “We’re already going together.”

Hunk frowns at him.

“What?”

“Keith,” Hunk says. “I’m going to say this again, and very carefully, and I want you to listen. Okay?”

“‘kay?”

“I think you should ask Lance to the dance,” Hunk says again, slow and deliberate. “Like, _really_ ask him.” Hunk pauses. “As your date.”

Keith’s brain shorts out. All he hears is a flutter of wings and his own breaths and then he says: “No. No way. Absolutely not.”

“Don’t freak out!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Hunk gives him a pained look. “Like I haven’t noticed you pining after Lance for, like, ever.”

For, like, ever.

Rude.

“Rude,” Keith says, a little meekly. And then: “What?”

“Keith,” Hunk says again. “If you ask Lance to be your date, like, actually your date, he will actually say yes. For real.”

“What?”

“Like, kissy-kissy on a date, for real.”

And maybe that’s the first time Keith wonders what kissing Lance would be like.

He goes red. Just—red. He feels the heat of it all over his face and scalp and down his neck and over his shoulders. He knows he’s gaping at Hunk, who looks simultaneously patient and exhausted, and he knows he’s clutching his pen too tightly.

“No,” he chokes out.

“Oh, Keith,” Hunk says and the pity in his voice is almost too much.

Keith drops his head to his desk and groans.

Hunk rubs his shoulder and says: “Just think about it, okay?”

“I’ll die if I keep thinking about it,” Keith tells his own knees.

“No, you won’t. You’ll be okay. I promise.”

Keith groans some more.

“Keith,” Hunk says again, close to his ear. “Don’t be scared, okay?”

 

***

 

Except how could he not be?

How did Hunk know? Does Lance know?

Does Lance want to kiss him?

Keith goes to the bathroom and shoves his head in the sink and runs the cold water until he’s dripping and shivering. He wants to kiss Lance, he knows now. He wants to kiss Lance’s freckles, and his chin, and that spot behind his ears that Keith’s attention has always—always—been drawn to. And he knows the butterflies in his belly want him to kiss Lance because they dance themselves into a frenzy: kiss him, kiss him, kiss him.

What would it be like?

 

***

 

Keith and Hunk meet up with Lance at the end of the day and Keith is sure—so sure—that he’s going to be sick.

Lance reaches for his hand but the touch of his fingertips—just his fingertips, just the promise of his skin and his attention—makes something burst and burn in Keith so he pulls his hand away and tugs on his sleeves and looks anywhere but Lance.

“What’s wrong?” Lance asks.

Keith shrugs. “Nothing,” he mutters.

“Liar.”

“French was long,” Hunk pipes up. “Keith’s not feeling well.”

Bless him, even though this is all his fault.

“Oh,” Lance says.

Keith can’t look at him. He keeps thinking about his lips and he tries to remember any description of a kiss he’s ever read and he thinks of trembling fingers and strawberries and meadows and secrets.

Lance, he’d say. And nothing else would matter. Just: _Lance_. And Lance would look at him and know and then—

Keith hunches in his sweater and looks at his feet and doesn’t glance at Lance, not even once.

 

***

 

Lance calls him, later.

Keith cradles the phone to his face and holds his breath and closes his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Lance asks again. And then, after a breath crackles over the phone and shoots down Keith’s spine like a curse: “Are you mad at me?”

“No,” Keith mumbles.

“Then—”

It’s easier on the phone. He knows Lance won’t see the persistent daydream in his eyes, the imagined feel of the way they might press close together, palm to palm and—

“Hunk just said something that freaked me out,” he says in a rush and is rewarded with a short burst of starlight laughter from Lance.

Keith thinks he’ll fall over. He’ll faint. Shiro and Adam would find him on the floor of the kitchen, dead.

“Hunk did?” Lance says. “What could freak _you_ out?”

And god, he’s a terrible liar and he knows it. What does he say now? It’s a secret, Lance; it’s not for you, Lance.

His breaths stutter.

“Keith?”

“He said I should get a date for the dance,” Keith replies, sounding bewildered even to his own ears. “He said I should get a— _kissy-kissy_ date.”

Lance doesn’t laugh. He’s quiet for a moment, and then he asks: “I thought we were going together.”

“We are!”

“Then why are you freaking out?”

“I’m not freaking out.”

“You’re totally freaking out.” And then, teasingly: “Scared of kissy-kisses with that boy you love?”

And Lance is joking and Keith knows the next step is his displeased retort, but all he can say is a breathless admission: “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

 

***

 

“Are you okay?” Adam asks when Keith hangs up the phone.

He puts the cordless phone on the counter and rubs his red cheeks and nods grimly.

“Are you sure?”

“Adam,” Keith says, turning around.

Adam tilts his head and leans back in his seat at the kitchen table. “Yeah?”

“Do you think—” Keith breaks off with a grunt. He taps his fingers against the counter and pushes away from it. “Do you think Lance would say yes? If I asked him to the dance?”

Keith waits for “you’ll have to ask to find out” or “don’t get too excited, Keith” or “he’s one of your best friends” but instead Adam smiles, because he’s Adam, and says: “Yes, I think he would.”

“Oh,” Keith says, his head spinning. “Really?”

“Yup. Do you want to sit down?”

“Yes.”

 

***

 

He can’t sleep.

Adam tells Shiro he’s lovesick, like this is new, and Keith starts giggling. He claps his hands over his mouth and says he’s going to bed and then he lays on his back and forces himself to breathe. He looks up at his stars.

Hours pass and all he thinks about is Lance. At some point he starts smiling and he can’t stop. There’s something warm in his chest, feeding the butterflies and making Keith’s heart beat and beat and beat. It’s hope, he supposes. It’s being hopeful.

Lance, he could say; _I love you_.

Lance, he could say; _I want to dance with you_.

Hey Lance, he could say; _I want to be your boyfriend_.

That makes him want to laugh again. Lance’s boyfriend! Lance, with his laughter and his smile and his beautiful, beautiful eyes. Lance, who holds his hand and lies close to him and watches the stars with him.

Is it Keith? Does loving _Keith_ make him want to explode?

God, but to kiss him. Be close to him and think that maybe, maybe, Lance wants to be close as much as Keith does. Like Keith does.

Lance—Lance—Lance.

Keith falls into a dreamless sleep and wakes feeling restless and anxious.

 

***

 

A day passes. At lunch, it’s just them and Lance is leaning against him and Keith holds his breath.

“What?” Lance asks, frowning at him.

“Nothing,” Keith replies, his nerve fluttering away to die.

“You’re so weird.”

But Lance doesn’t seem to mind. Lance seems to like Keith _because_ he’s weird.

 

***

 

Another day. They get to school at the same time and Hunk and Lance are bantering easily. They’re so natural together. Hunk makes Lance laugh.

“Lance,” Keith blurts and Lance turns to look at him and Keith gets to experience the full brunt of his smile and it threatens to knock him off his unsteady feet. “Nothing,” he mumbles.

Never mind.

 

***

 

He could ask Shiro what to do. It wouldn’t be hard. Shiro would give him good advice. But the words stick in his throat.

What if Lance says no?

 

***

 

Days.

They spend a Sunday afternoon together and Keith watches Lance read for a while and draw for longer. He watches Lance cover his face against the biting, early winter wind. They help Regina change the tires on her car and they drink hot chocolate together and Keith thinks of kissing Lance seven times.

 

***

 

Somewhere along the way he starts to believe that it will be alright. All he has to do is ask Lance: will you be my date to the dance?

He starts the believe that Lance will say _yes_. He starts to believe that, soon, he’ll be able to say _I love you_ and Lance will hear what Keith wants him to hear.

 

***

 

But he doesn’t ask.

He daydreams about it. He visualizes it. He wants it. But every chance slips away and he tells himself over and over: next time, next time, next time.

And then Wednesday before the dance, Lance sits at their usual lunch spot and frowns at Keith and Hunk and says: “Don’t be mad.”

“What did you do?” Hunk asks. Keith smiles and drinks an entire juice box without feeling self-conscious and, together, they wait for Lance’s latest admission—

“I know we were going to the dance together,” Lance says, rubbing his fingers against the table. “But—”

Keith’s heart pounds in his ears. His teeth shriek in his mouth. His butterflies burn away in his stomach.

“But?” he says, his mouth dry.

“Halya asked me,” Lance blurts. “To the dance. So...we’re going to go together.”

“You like Halya?” Hunk says. Under the table, his knee bumps into Keith’s and stays there, warm and grounding.

Lance flushes and crosses his arms, hides his twitching hands. “I like her hair,” he mutters.

“She has pretty hair,” Hunk allows.

And Keith—

“Traitor,” he says drily and rolls his eyes and reaches for his lunch. Everything tastes like dust.

“You’re just mad ‘cause you didn’t get a date first,” Lance sniffs.

“If I wanted a date, I’d get a date!”

“Uh huh.”

They make it fine by teasing each other and laughing. Keith gets through the rest of the afternoon by making it _fine_.

But what it is is awful.

Sickening.

At the end of the day, Halya with her long dark hair and her big dark eyes and her straight white teeth—Halya tucks her hair behind her ear and waves at Lance. Lance flushes and waves back.

They get on the bus. They talk, like it’s normal. Like it’s alright.

Lance touches Keith’s shoulder when they part and Keith manages to smile at him and then he goes home.

He goes into the living room. He dumps his backpack on the floor and he sits on the couch. He grabs a pillow and presses it to his face and he screams.

“Keith?” Shiro says. “What’s wrong?”

Keith keeps screaming for a moment and then he drops the pillow and looks up at his brother and says: “I really thought he liked me.”

 

***

 

He doesn’t cry. Shiro says “Oh, Keith” and Adam says “I’m sorry, kiddo” and Hunk calls and says “This doesn’t make sense.”

Except it does. It makes perfect sense.

Keith lays on his side and stares at his wall and he wonders why he thought anything at all.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter, Keith references The Amber Spyglass in one of his daydreams. He’s reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and later the first two books in the Darkangel trilogy (The Darkangel and A Gathering of Gargoyles). I think I only mention him reading once, explicitly, but you can count him always carrying around a book. 
> 
> Next chapter will be up soon!! I’m having some trouble with EVERYTHING so I’ll try and fix the section breaks tomorrow.


	17. Chapter 16

Thursday. 

They walk to their bus stop together, elbows knocking and breath misting. It’s cold. It’s dark. Winter is in full force, now. 

“You look tired,” Lance tells Keith eventually. 

“I am.”

They shuffle into the bus shelter with its packed-down snow and permanent marker greetings and they sit on the little bench together. Keith can feel the cold metal through his pants. He shivers. 

“Keith,” Lance says. 

“Lance.”

“Are you angry with me?”

“No?”

Lance shifts next to him. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Keith wiggles his toes. “Do you think I’m mad about Halya?”

“I think you’re something about Halya. I don’t know what.”

“I’m not anything about Halya,” Keith grunts. “Hunk and I are going to have more fun than you, though.”

“Yeah, right! I’m getting a slow-dance tomorrow, Keith. Just you wait.”

* * *

 

That thought haunts Keith for the whole ride to school. Lance is going to smile at her and she’s going to look at him with those big eyes and they’ll probably both blush and something sappy and stupid will play over the speakers and maybe he’ll kiss her.

Gross, he tells himself to try and drown out the pouting in his head.

 

 

* * *

At lunch, Lance sheepishly tells them that “Halya wants to eat together” and “we’ll see each other later” and Keith has to watch Halya grab Lance’s hand and Lance almost jump a foot into the air.

“Gross,” he insists out loud.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Hunk says and tugs him away by the arm. They slip from the cafeteria before Lance looks back at them.

“I feel like punching something,” Keith says while Hunk pulls him down the hall. It’s snowing, outside. The cream floors are slippery and generally mucky. Lance is holding some girl’s hand.

“I still think you should ask him,” Hunk says when they get to their lockers. “He’ll say yes if you just ask.”

“No,” Keith mumbles. “If he wanted to go to the dance with me, he’d ask me.”

“He’s probably thinking the same thing.”

Keith looks at him. Hunk shrugs and opens Keith’s locker for him.

“Hunk,” Keith says. “Go with me.”

“We’re already going.”

“No. As, like, my date.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“I’m not making kissy-kissy faces with you!”

“Stop saying kissy-kissy. Please”

Hunk thrusts Keith’s jacket into his unprepared arms and scowls. “Fine,” he says. “ _ Fine _ . But you’re buying me fries.”

“You’re the best.”

“I don’t know what this accomplishes.”

“Well,” Keith says. “I don’t have to be alone and sad, tomorrow.”

“We were always going together!”

 

 

* * *

 

They slip their way across the street and to the mall. Most of the lunchtime crowd have already wandered over. Keith and Hunk follow the steps in the snow and link their arms and bow their heads against the wind. It’s cold. It’s snowing. Keith keeps thinking about Lance so he holds onto Hunk a little tighter.

“We could just not go,” Keith says once they’re inside. “We could do a puzzle and eat chips, instead.”

“Dances aren’t really fun, anyways,” Hunk agrees.

Though they both know they’ll go, if only because Lance will wonder after them.

They get to the food court and wait for ages in line and their lunch hour ticks away and neither of them have eaten. They stay glued together and the fries come out hot and steaming and Keith burns his tongue on one and Hunk covers them in vinegar.

“That’s too much,” Keith tells him.

“It’s not,” Hunk replies with confidence so Keith lets him do what he wants. 

“We could stay here,” Keith says when they’re hovering uncertainly outside of the food court, heads bowed together and the fries cradled between them. “We could just...not go back for class and stay here and eat fries until we die.”

“Until we die,” Hunk echoes. “No, we’re going back to class.”

“I don’t want to see him holding her hand,” Keith mumbles and shoves four fires in his mouth. They point against his cheeks and the oil is hot and the vinegar is good and he wishes he would just cry. Just get it done and over with and then he could move on. Or whatever.

“I know,” Hunk says and presses his forehead to Keith’s and that makes Keith’s eyes burn. He chews his fries deliberately and slowly. “I’m sorry, Keith.”

They begin walking back. The fries don’t make it to the other end of the mall.

They’re almost late. Lance looks at them, looking frazzled and worried and annoyed, and asks: “Where did you guys go?”

Hunk brushes some snow from Keith’s hair and says: “The mall.”

“Oh,” Lance says.

“Did you have a nice lunch?”

“Yeah.”

 

 

* * *

“Keith,” Hunk had said, halfway between the mall and the school. “You’ve got to ask for what you want, you know?”

 

 

* * *

At the end of the day, a miracle: Keith and Lance find seats on the bus and crowd into them. Lance presses against the window and Keith presses against Lance to avoid swinging backpacks and elbows. Keith gets to be close to Lance and his smile and Lance takes his hand and holds on tight. It’s strangely private, sitting like this on the overcrowded bus and watching the city slip by and listening to voice mingle and turn into noise.

They talk about nothing. Lance rubs his thumb gently over Keith’s and Keith presses the fingers of his other hand into the worn seat.

When they squeeze off the bus they’re reluctant to let go and go home. Keith wants to say “let’s go to the park” or “let’s just stay out here for a bit” but the cold is getting worse and the snow is getting heavier. The sky’s starting to darken and even in Lance’s hold, his hand is starting to burn.

It’s cold.

He wants to hurry home and bury himself under blankets and with his book and just wait for winter to pass. But Lance is here, and close, and looking at him with his ears tinged red from the wind and his eyes bright and blue and enchanting. If they let go, now, would that be it? A slamming door? A lock sliding into place? Just Keith, watching through a keyhole to see Lance holding someone else’s hand and Lance dancing with someone else?

“We could go to the park,” Lance says eventually.

“It’s cold,” Keith tells him even as his heart soars.

Lance sighs. “Yeah. Oh well. We’ll see each other tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

They peel their hands apart and wave goodbye and Keith crunches his way through the snow. When he gets home, Shiro greets him with a warm “hello” and the promise of hot chocolate and Keith smiles.

 

 

* * *

 

And then it’s Friday.

Everyone’s excited. It’s almost annoying. The student council are running their butts off, making sure everything’s ready, and nobody seems able to concentrate in class. Lance doodles through science and Hunk kicks the back of Keith’s chair when he stares at Lance doodling.

“Should I wear something nicer?” Lance asks them at lunch, leaned over his lunch and scratching at his neck.

“Stop that,” Hunk says, flicking a cracker crumb at him.

Lance slaps his hand to the table.

“It’s too late,” Keith says with a shrug. “You don’t have time to go home, Lance.”

Lance tugs at his shirt and sighs and says: “I know. I know!”

He’s nervous and it’s adorable and it’s driving Keith crazy.

 

* * *

 

_ You’ve got to ask for what you want _ .

Keith doesn’t even know what that means, really.

Maybe he could beg Lance not to go to the dance with Halya, or at least not to slow-dance with her or kiss her or look at her—

But he could never do that.

 

 

* * *

 

“I think you should still try and ask that boy,” Lance tells Keith during Social that afternoon.

“What boy?”

“The one you love.”

Keith looks up from his textbook and frowns. Lance blinks at him, leaned on his elbows and looking handsome with his hair and his cheeks and his—Lance-ness.

“I thought about it,” Keith says. “But I think I took too long.”

“Oh,” Lance says. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” Keith rolls his pen between his fingers. “I hope you have fun with Halya, though.”

“Me too.”

 

* * *

 

And then the day’s over.

Just like that.

Halya comes over to their lockers and takes Lance’s hand and says: “Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” Lance tells her, grinning.

“Bye,” Hunk says and elbows Keith.

“Bye,” Keith says and manages not to sound sullen.

They watch Lance and Halya go, smiling and talking and giggling together.

“This sucks,” Keith says.

“I know,” Hunk replies.

And Keith realizes how lovely it is to have his other best friend in the whole world know—this. He can be sad and Hunk understands and he hasn’t told Keith, once, to stop pining for Lance or—anything.

He looks up at Hunk and Hunk looks at him, blinking rapidly. “What?” he says. “What is it?”

“You’re a good friend,” Keith tells him.

And Hunk beams at him.

 

* * *

 

The gym is loud and dark and there’s already a crowd of people dancing together. Keith hates the way the floor seems to shake and he hates the stupid smoke machines the student council always spends too much money on. He and Hunk shuffle to the side and crowd against the closed bleachers.

“We could dance,” Keith says. Shouts.

Hunk just shakes his head and Keith thinks: yeah, let’s not do that.

Someone is yelling and yelling and yelling, all the way on the other side of the gym, and it’s all starting to give Keith a headache. He scans what he can see of the growing crowd and then he spots Lance and Halya, sort-of dancing together and apparently trying to have a conversation amidst all the noise and music and  _ noise _ . Lance throws back his head and laughs at something she says and Keith knows, just knows, what that sounds like.

Still, he wishes he could hear it.

“Not to state the obvious,” Hunk yells near his ear. “But pouting on the sidelines is a lot more fun when Lance is here.”

Keith nods.

Yeah.

Usually, it’s Lance’s job to drag them into something resembling fun. He always has the best complaints and the worst jokes and he’s very good at filling the space that Hunk’s anxiety and Keith’s shyness leaves.

Together, Keith and Hunk are just...quiet.

But they’re together, and that’s what counts.

“When d’you think it’s okay to leave?” Hunk says.

“An hour,” Keith decides. “Let’s make it an hour and then—we can go.”

“Okay, but only if you promise not to stare at Lance the whole time.”

Keith makes no such promise.

He and Hunk shuffle around the edge of the dance, eating snacks as they go and trying and failing to have half-baked conversations. They leave once so Hunk can stick his head out a door and breathe in some fresh air and Keith grabs a can of body spray from a twelve-year-old and chucks it in the garbage.

“You are horrible,” Hunk tells him while the twelve-year-old storms away. “But also wonderful.”

“Thanks.”

They wander back to the gym doors and peer inside.

“Are we weird?” Hunk asks.

“Probably.”

“Well,” Hunk sighs. “Okay.”

They probably aren’t a very festive pair, wandering around and looking annoyed and nervous and definitely not dancing. Keith swears he catches Lance looking for them but he freezes in his spot and grabs onto Hunk and waits for Lance to give up, his shoulders slumping. Halya drags him in for more dancing— _ more _ dancing—and she stands close to him and looks up at him. Her hair is loose and falling around her shoulders and when she leans her head back to stare up at Lance or smile up at him or laugh at something he’s said, her hair falls in a cascade to the middle of her back that sways with her, that bounces with her, that laughs with her.

Keith drinks two of the free energy drinks the student council is passing around. Hunk wrestles a third from him and hands it to the same twelve-year-old Keith had stolen the body spray from.

“I’m going to smell like an Axe commercial for the rest of my life,” Hunk sighs, later.

“What does an Axe commercial smell like?”

“Axe, duh.”

“Gross.”

The hour passes like this. Neither of them are comfortable. Neither of them need to say how much it sucks without Lance around to brighten their moods and make anything— _ anything _ —interesting.

But Lance is busy and Keith is pouting and Hunk—

“I’m going to go catch my bus,” he tells Keith the next time they wander from the gym and scuff their way around the halls.

“You’ve been a great date,” Keith replies.

“You’re the best.”

No, Hunk is the best. But Keith smiles and pats his arm. He watches Hunk put on his coat and he walks Hunk to the front doors and he lets Hunk pull him into a tight hug.

“Don’t stay too much longer,” Hunk says. “If you see Lance, say bye for me.”

“My bus comes soon,” Keith mumbles into his shoulder. “Thanks for coming with me, Hunk.”

“Thanks for being a grump with me, Keith.”

He watches Hunk trek through the snow. The weather has finally relaxed: the wind has settled and the snow has cleared and now everything has that early-winter, fairy tale quality to it. Keith thinks that he and Lance will go to the park tomorrow and roll in the snow and complain about school and everything won’t be that different, everything won’t be that weird.

He turns away and goes back to the gym.

He doesn’t spy Lance and Halya immediately. The crowd dancing together is huge now, screaming song lyrics and bouncing together. It makes Keith nervous just looking at it so he looks away and he spots Halya and Lance across the gym. They’re sitting on the floor, together; leaned, together, and talking. They look happy, Keith supposes.

Lance has his legs kicked out and his head leaned back. His hands flail as he talks and Keith watches him laugh once, twice, three times. It makes him miss, suddenly and loudly, the sound of Lance’s voice when they were huddled under Keith’s blankets, and the feel of Lance’s hand in his, and the comfortable way Lance liked to lean into Keith and let Keith just hold on to him.

It’ll pass, Keith tells his butterflies and his heart and the lump in his throat. He just needs to wait for it to pass.

He’s never been patient, though. He looks at Lance and he wants him, wants both his friend and the boy he’s come to love. He wonders what it would be like to have Lance’s eyes on him, all the time, and Lance’s attention focused on him, all the time. He wonders what it would be like if he could pull the blankets over their head and kiss Lance’s smile and hear Lance say  _ I love you _ in the way Keith wants him to say it.

His heart feels too big for his body.

_ You have to ask for what you want _ .

He’s halfway across the gym before he realizes what he’s doing and something snaps in his head and begins to scream:  _ no no no no _ , but he’s already going, he’s already moving. The closer he comes the clearer he can hear Lance’s voice and his laughter, and the brighter Lance’s eyes seem in the dim gym with all the noise and the voices around them. Halya’s right there, looking at Lance like maybe Keith does, he can’t know for sure, but if he concentrates he can forget her.

She fades away. 

And Lance looks up at him and smiles so wide, so wonderfully wide, and says: “Keith!”

“Hi Keith,” Halya says, tapping her feet against the gym and smiling up at him, too.

“Hi,” Keith says to them both.

“Where’s Hunk?” Lance asks.

“He went home,” Keith replies.

The song finishes and they get a moment of blissful silence. Keith’s ears ring. He wonders if his face looks weird because Lance’s smile is shifting and falling away. He doesn’t know what he came here to do: just to look at Lance, maybe; just to see him before he vanished somewhere Keith couldn’t reach, with Halya and kisses and slow-dances. He waits for the next song to pick up and drown out his butterflies and his heart and his nausea: a  _ thump-thump _ that will shake his feet and mutate his brain and give him the courage to say “I’m leaving, Lance” and “have fun, Lance” and “nice to see you, Halya.”

But instead, something softer starts. The crowd on the floor bursts into nervous giggles and begins to pair up or disperse.

And Keith turns pink. He knows it. He’s shown up at the worst time and his face is going to melt off and Lance is looking up at him—

“Lance,” he says. “Will you dance with me?”

“Huh?” says Halya, loud and clear, but if Keith concentrates she fades away.

It isn’t fair and he knows it. He could walk away and leave them to their date and their nonsense and pretend the words never left his mouth. But he’s stuck. 

He hears Lance take a breath.

“Yeah,” Lance says. And then louder: “Yeah. Okay. Yes.” He holds out his hand and Keith pulls him to his feet and doesn’t let go and then they’re face-to-face, for a moment, and the music is playing and Keith is sure he’s in a bad movie, or a bad book, or a daydream.

“Okay,” he mumbles. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Lance agrees.

“We’ll be back,” Keith tells Halya.

“Okay?” she says.

Keith pulls Lance away before his courage dies but he knows, now, that anything is possible if he’s got Lance’s hand in his. 

“Keith,” Lance says to the back of his head and Keith stops.

He takes three breaths. And he turns.

“I’m not very good at dancing,” he tells Lance.

“I know,” Lance laughs. “I’ve got you, though.”

Keith holds up his free hand and Lance takes it without hesitation, their fingers twisting and their palms pressing together. It’s almost uncomfortable but it’s also wonderful.

Perfect.

They don’t move, for a moment. Keith can’t even hear the music anymore.

“Lance,” he starts, his breath catching and his nerves shrieking. He gapes and chokes like a fish and he knows he won’t be able to say it, he knows this is all he’ll ever be able to manage.

And then Lance lets go of his hands and leaves Keith cold, and shaking, and scared, just for a moment before he throws his arms around Keith, warm and tight.

Keith’s heart stops. He thinks he’s going to faint and then everything in him thrums back to life and Lance presses his face to Keith’s neck and they breathe, together.

“I love you,” he says in a rush, close to Lance’s ear. “Lance, I love you.”

Lance makes a noise against his neck and Keith winds his arms around Lance, just in case they start to fall apart, and he counts another three breaths and feels the thud of his heart in his chest and he says again: “I love you.”

Lance lifts his head and presses his cheek to Keith’s and says, almost too quiet for Keith to hear: “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Keith says. “I love you. So much—”

“I love you, too,” Lance cuts in, gentle and slow and maybe—maybe sure.

“Oh,” Keith whispers.

“I love you, too,” Lance says again. 

“Oh.”

 

* * *

They leave the gym when the song changes, when the world seems to burst back into motion around them and Keith can feel the flush in his cheeks and Lance in his arms. He pulls Lance with him and they go, quiet and unsteady, and they stand in the blaring fluorescent lights of the hall and Keith thinks they could go anywhere.

Anywhere.

“I really want pancakes,” he tells Lance, serious and quiet.

Lance laughs and squeezes his hand.

They go outside.

It’s cold. It’s quiet. The sky’s changing colours and the snow seeps into Keith’s sneakers.

They keep going, going along the brick wall of their school and kicking their way through the snow.

“Where’re we going?” Lance asks eventually, tugging Keith to a stop.

Keith looks at him. Their breath mists. His hands shake. “Nowhere, I guess,” he admits. “I just wanted to get out.”

“That’s fine.”

“Yeah?”

Lance nods.

They’re quiet, then, standing together. Keith wants to tell Lance that he had wanted to ask him to the dance, that he had thought about dancing together, that he had been waiting for his courage to flare up just enough so he could. But the words stutter and die before they reach his throat and Keith just clutches Lance’s hand and looks at Lance looking at him.

Like they’re the only people in the world, maybe.

“Lance,” he manages and shuffles a step closer. But nothing else comes.

He could say “I want to be your boyfriend” or “I want to hold your hand forever” or even just another “I love you.” But he doesn’t. He freezes and he trembles and he looks at Lance and studies his freckles and his nose and his eyes and the soft brown of his hair.

Lance doesn’t say anything, either.

“I want to kiss you,” Keith could say.

But he doesn’t. He presses his fingers to Lance’s freckles and feels Lance lean into him and watches Lance’s soft, slow smile grow and grow and grow.

Keith feels like he could fly. Like he could do anything.

“Keith,” Lance says, sounding like he’s laughing and whispering all at once. And he smiles and he smiles and he smiles.

So Keith kisses him, just like that: soft and quick and warm and making fireworks spark along his fingers and toes and cheeks.

“Keith,” Lance says again, a little louder and a little brighter and his voice sounds like sunlight, like summer, like rain.

So Keith kisses him again, just light. Just quick.

 

* * *

“You look happy,” Shiro says when he comes home that night. “Did you have fun?”

“Yup,” Keith says and eats some cheese and goes to bed.

He doesn’t sleep well. He presses his face to his pillow and he thinks about Lance, three doors down, and he smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya


	18. shiro

(“Can we be brothers?” Keith had asked, once, when he was smaller and quieter; when his clothes had been looser and he had struggled just to make eye contact.

“Yes,” Shiro had replied instead of “sure” or “probably” or “as long as we want to.” Just: yes.

“Oh,” Keith had said. And then: “How do you know?”

Yes, how?

“I guess we just do,” Shiro had said.

“I’ve never had a brother,” Keith had continued thoughtfully, sitting on his hands and blinking up at Shiro. “I don’t know what it’s supposed to be like.”

“Me neither.”

And Keith had smiled so Shiro had smiled, too.)

* * *

It’s sunny and hot outside, despite the knee-high snow, blinding white. There’s been a pressure change, maybe; a chinook blowing through to melt all the gifts from a week-old snow storm.

Keith woke up with a nose bleed and Adam went back to bed with a migraine. Shiro sneaks in the bedroom to check on one (“Are you still alive?”; with a reply of garbled noises and curses) and troops back to the kitchen to check on the other.

Keith, scowling at his homework and breathing through his mouth, lifts his head and shows off the nubs of tissue stuffed in his nose.

“Is it still bleeding?” Shiro asks, squinting.

Keith shrugs. “I don’t know.”

He sounds hilarious, all plugged up and vaguely phlegmy; like he’s talking to Shiro through a tube. Shiro smiles.

Keith scowls some more. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not laughing!”

“You are!” Keith goes back to his homework, to his studying. “In your head. I know it.”

“Mhm.” Shiro pulls out a chair and drops into it. “Come on. Out with the tissue.”

“I’m busy.”

“If your nose is still bleeding, we should go to the hospital.”

“I don’t want to go the hospital!”

“Show me your nose, Keith.”

Keith lifts his head again and gestures, once and a little violently, at his face.

“Very funny.”

“Yes,” says Keith in his tube. “I’m hilarious.”

“Your friends are too nice to you,” Shiro says. “They’re giving you confidence or something.”

“Or something,” Keith scoffs.

Shiro reaches forward and tugs the nubs from Keith’s nose. Keith scowls and Shiro studies his nose, with the crusted blood and the white flakes from the tissues. Keith sniffs.

“I think you’re okay,” Shiro says, leaning back. He holds out the nubs and Keith snatches them back.

“That’s what it wants you to think,” Keith grumbles and squirms out of his seat to toss away the tissue nubs. “Look away for five seconds and it’ll start spewing blood again.”

“It wasn’t exactly  _ spewing _ .”

“It was,” Keith replies glumly. “All over my shirt.”

“Well,” Shiro says with a shrug. “Don’t pick your nose.”

“I didn’t pick my nose!”

“Uh huh.”

“I didn’t!”

Shiro leaves Keith to his homework and makes his quiet, slow way back upstairs. Keith watches him go, gnawing on his pencil and refusing, still, to clean his face.

The bedroom is dark with all the lights off and the blinds closed. Adam is just a lump on their bed, squirrelled under the blankets and pressing his face into a pillow. Shiro closes the door quietly behind him and counts Adam’s long breaths. There’s something of a grunt or a whine under them, like the ghost of Adam’s voice and an admission of his pain. He twitches when Shiro comes close and pulls the blankets tighter around himself, presses his face a little further against the pillow.

“Hey,” Shiro say, soft as he can.

Adam makes a nonsensical sound. It’s not quite a grunt, not quite a moan—definitely not a word. Shiro sits and touches Adam’s shoulder lightly, and then leans down to press a quick kiss to his cheek. Adam squirms some more. His eyes are shut so tightly lines stretch over his temples and cheeks. He breathes like it hurts, like he’s trying to stop himself. Shiro rubs gentle circles against his shoulder and studies what he can of the temporary and permanent lines of Adam’s face and wonders if he is getting a glimpse of Adam, now, as he will be—later.

Later.

“How are you feeling?” Shiro whispers.

“Like death.”

“Ah.”

He tucks the blankets tighter, impossibly tighter, around Adam and scrambles to the other side of the bed and lays down in Adam’s usual spot. Adam twitches next to him and Shiro rolls close and presses another kiss to Adam’s neck. He listens to Adam breathe and feels him relax back into a painful sleep and he wonders how much longer all this will last.

Keith wakes him with a poke to his shoulder.

“Guh?” Shiro says.

“I made mac ‘n cheese,” Keith whispers.

“Cheese,” Adam groans and rolls over and smacks a hand against Shiro’s chest.

“Are you alive?” Keith asks.

“Only just.”

“You made mac ‘n cheese?” Shiro says, blinking the last of his dreamless doze away.

“From the box,” Keith says, sounding halfway bashful. “It’s food.”

“Only just,” Adam sighs and pulls a pillow over his head.

Shiro pats his hand and then pushes it away. Keith scurries away from the side of the bed and back out the open bedroom door.

“I’m staying here,” Adam mumbles and rolls into the warm spot Shiro leaves behind.

“You should eat something,” Shiro tells him as he stands. He stretches and feels his back creak and his shoulders complain. “Or drink something.”

“Or,” Adam replies in a grunt. “I could die.”

“You sound a little better.”

“Or I could die!”

“I heard your dramatics the first time.”

Adam opens one bleary eye and glares up at Shiro. Shiro smiles, rubs Adam’s back, and goes after Keith.

Keith is elbow-deep, already, into the pot of mac ‘n cheese. Three scattered boxes litter the counter, the torn packages of cheese powder leaving orange fingerprints on the wooden spoon Keith had used, on the counter and the knobs of the stove. Shiro comes up behind him and peers into the pot. Keith shoves another forkful of noodles into his mouth at the same time that he scoops another giant spoonful into his bowl.

“It’s so orange,” Shiro marvels.

“It’s perfect,” Keith promises and grins a cheesy smile.

They set aside a bowl for Adam and cover it in foil. When the pot is empty they sit at the table together and stare at the bowl together, hungrily. Shiro’s belly is almost uncomfortably full but he’s already desperate for more cheese taste.

“We could drink water,” Shiro says.

“We could eat Adam’s dinner,” Keith says.

“Is mac ‘n cheese really dinner?”

“Yeah. Adam makes it all the time!”

“Not from a box.”

“Some of us have other things to do.”

That makes Shiro laugh, long and loud. They leave the bowl be.

 

* * *

 

(Dr. Mosse, with her dark eyes and her large glasses and the scars on her hands, likes to sit with her eyes just shy of Shiro’s, with one hand in her spiral notebook and the other rubbing idle circles against the arm of her chair. She’s small and barely fills her little office but she seems huge, to Shiro, when she dims the lights and asks how he’s been.

That day, Shiro had stared out her window, at the rain falling against it, and he had said: “He needs a family.”

“So do you,” Dr. Mosse had replied.

“I have a family.” Shiro had paused, had dragged his attention from the window. “Now we can be Keith’s.”

Dr. Mosse had blinked, slow and deliberate, like she did when she had to consider her words and her thoughts and the way she would share them. And then she had said: “You don’t need my permission.”

And Shiro had realized—yes, he didn’t.)

* * *

Adam gets up eventually and reheats his mac ‘n cheese while Keith tells him about the nosebleed and his homework and how he had slept away the whole day. Shiro takes a shower and comes back to the kitchen to find them still talking away, Adam squinting every once in a while and Keith forcing water glass after water glass on him.

Keith is nine and fourteen at the same time. He’s the conflation of five years: the familiar bob of his head as he talks, and the practiced way Adam leans toward him to listen, and changing sound of Keith’s voice. Adam complains that he can’t drink anymore water—his bladder’ll explode, Keith, and that’ll be a mess. And Keith replies by saying that Isabel says to drink water when one has a headache, and Adam had just had the headache to end all headaches—I did not, thank you very much—and should drink lots of water and no more coffee—I’d like to see you stop me from drinking coffee, munchkin—

It’s just the two of them but they seem to fill up the whole kitchen. There’s a shimmering fence of noise between Shiro and them and he’s content to stay where he is, listening and watching and witnessing the two of them.

This is family, he thinks with confidence. This is home.

 

 

* * *

(The first two days: Keith had woken well before either of them. Adam and Shiro had found him sitting on his neatly made bed, flipping through a book. Keith had lifted his head and looked sheepish and uncomfortable and small, shoving his hair out of his face and dragging his fingers against the pages.

And then the third day: Keith had woken Shiro with a poke to his shoulder, before the sun had risen and while Adam slept peacefully.

“Are you keeping me?” Keith had asked, while Shiro tried to pull his way out of the last of his sleepiness.

“Huh?”

And then Keith had grimaced and continued—clarified: “Are you going to get rid of me?”

Shiro had blinked, and then blinked some more, and then had finally said: “No, Keith.”

“‘kay,” Keith had said in a mumble.

They had looked at each other for a moment, and then Shiro had shuffled as well as he could, backing into Adam, who grunted. “Come on,” he had said.

And Keith had scrambled onto the bed and squirrelled down next to Shiro and Shiro had fallen back asleep, watching Keith blink up at the ceiling like he was contemplating the whole universe.)

 

* * *

In the morning, Keith yells to the bathroom mirror: “Why am I so short!”

And Adam yells back: “Drink more milk!”

“Eat more vegetables,” Shiro suggests while he considers their closet.

“Good idea,” Adam agrees. He turns back to the open bedroom door and yells: “Eat more vegetables!”

“Leave me alone!” Keith shrieks back.

And it’s all very normal.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a lot of feelings about one takashi shirogane


	19. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soft............................

“Nobody needs a wedding,” Luis complains to Isabel one sunny Sunday afternoon.

“They’re a lot of work,” Isabel agrees.

“It’s just a big party!” Luis slaps his hand to the table and then shoves a donut in his mouth. Sprinkles flake and flutter around his lip.

“Very loud,” says Isabel, except Lance can remember her dancing and smiling and looking bright-eyes and beautiful at _her_ wedding.

He squints at her and licks some chocolate frosting from his fingers. Isabel ignores him and slides another donut onto Luis’s plate.

“So loud!” Luis carries on, immediately snatching up the donut. “It’s just noise and cake—”

“I like cake,” Lance cuts in and wipes his hands on his pants. “ _Everyone_ likes cake. And parties!”

“Everyone, huh?” Isabel smiles and leans one elbow on the table.

“I’ll buy you a cake,” Luis says, waving what’s left of his second donut at Lance. “Done! Party over.”

“God you’re a grump,” Lance huffs.

“You’d be a grump, too, planning a wedding.” Luis drops his head to the table and groans. “Flowers and places and people and cakes.”

“I think it’s just the one cake,” Isabel says.

“Lance!” Rachel calls from the hall. “Keith’s coming!”

Lance slides out of his chair and glances back at Luis with a frown. To his step-mother he says: “Fix him, please.”

Isabel just smiles and shakes her head and slides the box of donuts closer to him. “Bring one for Keith.”

Lance chooses a maple glazed donut and then snatches another chocolate donut and scurries away, leaving Luis to his complaining. It can’t be that bad, Lance thinks while he puts on his shoes and his coat and struggles to keep the donuts from Rachel. Every wedding he’s been to has been beautiful: dancing and smiling and crying and laughing; lights and cakes and flowers; snow and stars and sunshine. Luis, Lance thinks, is just getting distracted.

He opens the door just as Keith hops up the last step. Lance grins. Keith takes a stuttered step back and then returns the smile.

”Hi Keith,” Rachel calls.

“Hi Rachel,” Keith says.

“Bye Rachel,” Lance says over his shoulder and bounces out the door and shuts it tight. He holds out the maple donut. “Ta da.”

“Thanks.”

They eat their donuts on their meandering walk to the park. It’s sunny and the snow is bright and everything feels hot. Their elbows knock as they go but Lance can barely feel it through their coats.

He kicks a path through the snow to the swings. Keith follows, tugging his scarf loose and huffing a breath.

“Hot,” Keith grumbles.

“Uh huh,” Lance agrees. He wiggles his toes and feels the snow melting and seeping into his sneakers and wonders if he should’ve worn boots. He drops onto one of the swings and sways and then digs his feet into the snow and the gravel beneath it. He holds tight to the chains and looks up at Keith looking down at him and smiles again.

“Hi,” Keith says.

“Hi.”

Keith shuffles closer and he stumbles a bit, dragging in the snow and in the path Lance has haphazardly made. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are bright and his smile is small but perfect. He looks good, in the snow and in his coat and with his scarf hanging uselessly around his neck, and in this place that they know so well.

“What’re you smiling about?” Keith asks, like his own smile isn’t growing and growing.

“I’m happy to see you,” Lance says.

“Oh.” Keith’s smile twitches, but in the good way, in that way that says he wants to smile more and wider but his teeth are in the way. He pulls his hands from his pockets and reaches for the chains of the swing and holds tight, just above Lance’s own grip.

He’s different these days. He’s still Keith; he’s still Lance’s Keith, and the Keith who sleeps with books under his pillow and the Keith who likes to doze against Hunk and the Keith who makes angry scribbles on math tests. But he’s different. He’s looser. He smiles more and Lance hadn’t known how bright his smile could be until that first lovely morning after the dance, with Keith crowding close while they waited for the bus and while it snowed and it snowed and while Lance could think of nothing better than leaning in to kiss Keith’s cheek. Maybe it’s Lance who’s different, these days; maybe it’s the days that are different.

“Are you happy to see me?” Lance asks, and he knows the answer so he meant it to be teasing and playful but it comes out quiet and makes his voice sound serious. He pretends he’s chilled and hunches into his coat and holds onto the chains a little tighter and Keith goes on smiling.

”I missed you,” Keith says, instead of a yes or a no.

“Oh,” Lance says with a grin and Keith rolls his eyes and leans down and Lance thinks to ask _are you going to kiss me_ and then Keith does.

Quick and light and warm. Their noses bump and Lance gets a whiff of that distinct Keith smell, familiar and indescribable, like waking up together and walking together and falling asleep together. Lance smiles so wide he almost ruins the kiss. He licks his lips when Keith pulls back and he tastes maple and chocolate.

“I like kissing you,” Keith says.

“Good,” Lance huffs. “You should do it again.”

“Yes,” Keith agrees, serious enough to make Lance blush.

He screws up his face to try and hide it.

“What’re you doing?” Keith says, quiet laughter in his voice.

“Nothing!”

“Liar.” Keith pauses and they blink at each other for a moment. Keith’s hands slide down the chains and bump against Lance’s and Lance feels himself sway on the swing.

“What?” Lance asks.

“I’m going to kiss you again,” Keith says.

“You’d better.”

Keith does.

His lips are soft. Lance can taste his smile.

He’s missed Keith for a week, staring at his hands at school and watching him write and complain and laugh at Hunk’s jokes. He’s been right there, all week, and Lance has stolen hurried, nervous kisses when it felt alright, when no one was looking. He’s listened to Keith’s voice and wondered when Keith would say his name next and when he’d be able to hold Keith’s hand again and when he’d be able to press his face to Keith’s shoulder and hear Keith say _I love you, Lance_.

“I love you, Lance,” Keith mumbles.

“I love you too,” Lance says and waits for his heart to burst.

* * *

 

They stay at the swings, leaning together and kissing and talking, until Keith’s fingers start to burn and Lance’s toes go numb. They twist their fingers together as they trek back through the snow and under the sun. Lance leans close to Keith’s ear and whispers, three times: “I love you.”

He loves to say it. He loves to have Keith hear it. He loves how happy it makes Keith: I love you.

“Come over,” he says when they get back to their street. He can feel when Keith starts to get ready for a goodbye. It’s in the tension in his hands and the way he glances up at Lance and pinches his mouth in a strange but strangely lovely way.

“Oh,” Keith says. “Okay.”

Lance all but drags him home. Keith lets him. His grip on Lance’s hand doesn’t loosen.

They stomp the snow from their shoes and scurry through the front door. They glance at each other once and then Lance pulls his hand free with a frown and drops to the floor, tugging at his wet shoelaces. Keith unzips his jacket and kicks off his boots.

Lance’s mother pokes her head into the hall. “Hello Keith,” she says with a smile.

“Hi Keith,” comes Isabel’s voice.

“Hello,” Keith says.

“Are you staying for dinner?” Lance’s mother asks.

“Yes,” Lance says in a grunt on Keith’s behalf. He tugs off one shoe and tosses it aside.

“We made a lasagna,” Lance’s mother says. “I think you’ll like it.”

“Thank you,” Keith says.

Lance’s mother ducks away again. Lance hears her say to Isabel that Keith is always so polite and he hears Isabel reply but doesn’t catch her words. He tugs off his other sneaker and leaps to his feet.

Keith blinks at him.

Lance wants to kiss him.

It’s distracting.

He grabs Keith by the front of his sweater and tugs him down the hall. “We’re going to my room!” he hollers into the living room. “To do homework!”

“Have fun,” his mother says.

“Homework,” Keith mumbles while they pass the stairs. “I didn’t bring—”

“We’re not actually going to do homework,” Lance says over his shoulder.

“Oh,” Keith says.

“Yeah, oh!”

They duck into Lance’s bedroom and Lance kicks the door shut. His hears his mother yell _don’t slam doors_ and he shrugs at Keith.

Lance scurries to his bed and hops up to tug off his wet socks. “Yuck,” he grumbles and tosses them in little balls across the room.

“Should’ve worn boots,” Keith says, tossing his scarf onto the back of Lance’s desk chair. His jacket follows.

“I know!”

Keith shakes his head and comes to join Lance, tugging at his sweater sleeves all the way. He’s still pink-cheeked and red-nosed from the cold and the sudden warmth of coming home.

“You look good,” Lance says instead of just thinking it. And then to hide his own embarrassment, he nods once and vigorously and adds: “Very handsome.”

“Thanks.”

Lance is sweating in his own winter coat, still done up tight. He hugs his knees to his chest and rubs his bare toes against his blankets. Keith scrambles up to join him.

It’s less and less of a climb, these days.

Keith sits on the edge of Lance’s bed, his legs dangling. His socks are red and there’s a growing hole at his left big toe. Lance smiles and shuffles closer to shove his feet under one of Keith’s thighs.

“You should’ve worn boots!” Keith says again, poking at Lance’s ankles and then taking hold of one.

Lance keeps on smiling.

Keith taps his fingers against Lance’s skin and looks to the closed door with a frown. “Did Luis change his mind, then?”

“Huh?”

“About marrying Lisa?”

Lance shrugs. He wiggles his toes. Keith rolls his eyes and shuffles away and ignores Lance’s pout.

“I don’t think so,” Lance says. “He’s just complaining. He’s always complaining. Exams and moving and having a cold and when my mom and dad got divorced. He always manages in the end.”

Keith hums. He pulls his hand from Lance’s ankle and flops back against the bed. “Is that why he’s complaining?”

“The divorce?”

“Yeah.” Keith kicks his legs idly and settles his hands on his stomach. He twists his head to look up at Lance. “Maybe he’s scared of getting divorced later.”

“Our parents remarried,” Lance replies. “Everyone’s really happy now.”

“Luis wasn’t for a while.”

Like Lance needs reminding. He huffs and finally undoes his coat and tosses it to the floor. “Luis is just lazy,” he decides and flings himself onto his stomach and lays his head on Keith’s chest. Keith lifts his arms and catches Lance, holding his head and shoulders awkwardly but warmly. It’s enough for Lance to snuggle into.

He blows on his forehead.

“Rude,” Lance grumbles.

“Maybe.”

“Here I am, being all loving and stuff, and here _you_ are, being all mean and stuff.”

“I’ll never be mean to you,” Keith tells him.

“Liar.”

“Am not.”

“You’re mean to me all the time.”

“Says the boy who leaves me every other week.”

Lance scowls. Keith lifts his head to smile and then drops back with a sigh.

“I don’t leave you,” Lance grumbles into Keith’s sweater.

“I know.”

“I always come back.”

“I know. I didn’t mean it.”

Lance huffs. He drags his fingers against Keith’s sweater, feels the knit of the fabric. “You owe me a kiss, now,” he says.

“I’d kiss you if you weren’t laying on me,” Keith says.

Lance rolls his eyes and props himself up on his elbows. “That’s fine,” he says. “I’ll take it myself.”

He kisses Keith’s smile and the feel of it makes him hesitant to pull away. He lingers, just to enjoy it, even when it becomes less a kiss and more a lean. He likes the weight of Keith’s hand on his shoulder and the way it feels like Keith is holding his breath. And he likes that when he finally pulls away, Keith blinks up at him and keeps on smiling and smiling.

“That was a weird kiss,” Keith says and Lance can even hear his smile. It makes Keith’s voice lilt and dance and flutter against his ears.

Yes, he’s different these days. Sometimes Lance thinks he could look at Keith forever.

“It was a great kiss,” Lance says. “You’re definitely in love with me now.”

“I’ve been in love with you for ages,” Keith says.

“How long?”

“Forever.”

“Forever?”

“Forever. And I’m going to love you for another forever.”

Lance laughs, short and quick like bubbles on his tongue.

Keith scowls. “I’m not joking.”

“I know,” Lance says. “That’s why I’m happy.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_.” Lance shakes his head but leans in to steal another kiss. He pulls away before he can get caught up in it again and nudges his nose to Keith’s. “I’m going to love you forever, too.”

“Okay,” Keith mumbles. “I believe you.”

“Good.”

Lance rolls away and sits up, stretching the last of the post-cold ache from his limbs. He yawns. He licks his lips. He crosses his legs.

Keith watches him, blinking and comfy-looking against Lance’s bed. He smiles when Lance looks back at him.

“You’re doing the staring thing again,” Lance tells him.

“I’m going to do it a lot,” Keith promises.

Lance shakes his head and snatches up one of Keith’s hands. He twists their fingers together and studies Keith’s stubby nails and pretends he can feel Keith’s pulse in his wrist.

“We’re going to have a big party,” he decides, the idea blossoming in his head—no, exploding like fireworks. “With fairy lights and a big cake.”

“Huh?”

“At our wedding,” Lance clarifies. “We are _definitely_ not running off to the woods. Everyone’s coming and everyone’s going to eat cake. And dance.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll have whole tables covered in flowers,” Lance continues. He drums his fingers against the back of Keith’s hand. “And fancy music and stuff. And we’ll wear nice shirts.”

“Maybe it’ll rain,” Keith says. “Maybe we’ll have birds.”

“Birds?”

“Yeah. Like—doves.”

“Doves are just white pigeons, Keith.”

“You love pigeons.”

Lance considers this. “I suppose I do.”

“Even though they’re fat and can barely fly.”

“They’re just doing their best!”

“Adam says they’re rats with wings.”

“ _You_ like rats.”

“I’d like them less if they could fly.”

“Do you want rats at our wedding?”

“That would probably be weird.”

“Probably.”

Keith squeezes Lance’s hand. He chews his lip. “Our wedding, huh?” he says eventually.

Lance tilts his head. “Yeah.”

“We’re getting married?”

“Well, yeah.” Lance squirms and frowns down at Keith. “If we’re going to love each other forever, we’re going to get married, right?”

“I guess.” Keith pauses. “Unless I marry Hunk.”

“What! If anyone’s marrying Hunk it’s _me_.”

“I think I just called dibs on him.”

“He’s not a cheese string, Keith!”

 

* * *

 

Isabel forces too much lasagna on Keith. Keith eats it all, because he’s good like that. They sit at the table together and everyone jokes about Luis and Lisa panicking over a party, and Lance’s mother insists that they all should be nice to them and weddings are difficult and Luis is allowed some reasonable panic.

“Is it reasonable?” Veronica mutters.

Marco shushes her.

Lance watches Keith eat and smiles.

Keith leaves after dinner, grabbing his coat from Lance’s room and turning away at the door with a smile that’s almost as good as a kiss. Lance stays at the door for a moment, pretending he can still see Keith putting on his shoes and zipping up his coat.

They’ll see each other in the morning.

It seems far away.

When he goes to bed he realizes Keith has forgotten his scarf: it hangs red and soft on Lance’s chair still. He rubs his fingers against it and thinks for a long while, and then tugs it free and crawls into bed with it. It smells like Keith.

 

 

* * *

 

“That’s my scarf,” Keith says in the morning when Lance goes to retrieve him.

“No,” Lance says. “It’s mine.”

“It is not!”

Lance tucks his smile into the scarf.

He leans against Keith on the way to school and watches Keith read. Something warm flutters around his chest and down into his belly and Lance closes his eyes to enjoy it.

Hunk greets them both with a hug when they meet outside their lockers. He presses his cold face into Lance’s neck and ignores Lance’s protests.

“Isn’t this Keith’s scarf?” he says eventually.

“It is,” Keith grumbles.

“It’s not,” Lance says cheerfully.

 

 

* * *

 

He gets through the day by thinking about kissing Keith.

At morning assembly he looks at the back of Keith’s head and smiles and thinks about kissing Keith when his hair is tied up and kissing Keith just after he lets it back down (or out, really; it’s wild and dark and soft).

During math he watches Keith chew on his pencils and he knows that Keith is daydreaming and he thinks about kissing Keith when he’s not expecting it: a surprise peck, something to startle a smile out of him, a smile just for Lance.

At lunch he watches Keith and Hunk talk and swap bits of their lunches and he forgets about his own leftover lasagna. He rubs his fork against the edge of his tupperware and he watches Keith lick a smear of ketchup from his lips and he thinks about how soft Keith’s mouth is, when they kiss, and how their noses bump and how Keith’s smile tastes.

In Art, Lance keeps getting distracted from his sketch of a pineapple: he likes the way Keith hunches over his own sketchbook, and the way he tugs at his hair when he’s thinking. He daydreams about snuggling up to Keith in one of their bedrooms and sharing kisses until they fall asleep, and he daydreams about kissing Keith when he wakes up and waking Keith up with kisses—

At the end of the day, Hunk asks: “Are you guys fighting?”

“Huh?” Lance says.

Hunk scratches his chin and looks between them. “You’re not, you know, holding hands.”

“If we were fighting,” Keith says while he shoves more books than he needs into his backpack. “We would be holding hands.”

“I guess.” Hunk shrugs. “You guys are just being weird.”

“We are not,” Lance scoffs.

“Yeah, okay.” Hunk rolls his eyes.

“We’re not!”

“Let’s just go home,” Keith grumbles.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Maybe they are being a little weird. Maybe Lance stares at Keith too much and maybe they’re suddenly self-conscious about holding hands because what if someone _knows_ ? what if someone _sees them_? and ruins this private, lovely thing of theirs?

“I know,” Halya had said, scowling at Lance the Friday after, scowling after hearing out his ill-planned apology. “You should tell Keith to apologize to me.”

Keith had said he’d think about it.

“You stole her date,” Lance had tried to tell him.

“ _She_ stole _mine_.”

Which isn’t how the world works, but Lance had found it strangely flattering.

(“I won’t tell,” Halya had promised with a roll of her eyes. “But you guys suck at keeping secrets.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Let’s go to the park,” Lance says, maybe whines, when they get off at their stop. He tugs at Keith’s hand and jerks his other thumb over his shoulder.

“It’s cold,” Keith mumbles.

“We can kiss at the swings!”

Keith studies him for a moment. And then: “We can go kiss in my room. Where it’s warm.”

Well, Lance thinks.

“Boys,” Shiro greets.

“Hi,” they say together and Keith tugs Lance up the stairs so quickly they both slip.

“What’re you doing?” Shiro asks.

“Homework,” Keith grunts.

“Homework!” Lance agrees.

Because suddenly they are liars and it is very, very good.

 

 

* * *

 

Yes, a big wedding. Flowers and birds and lights and Keith.

He thinks about it all week. He imagines the noise and the laughter and the way everyone would smile at them. But in the end all he really sees is Keith, smiling and handsome and different in this wonderful way. All Lance really sees is Keith’s transformation from his Keith, his friend and his crush and his confidante and—all Lance really sees is Keith’s transformation from his friend Keith to his boyfriend Keith.

Keith, his boyfriend. Keith, who says _I love you, Lance_ just like he always has. Keith, who makes Lance wonder how long he’s been mishearing him.

Keith with his kisses and his smiles and the careful way he holds onto Lance when Lance falls into him. Keith, who looks so handsome dozing on Lance’s pillows. Keith, who is the same and not.

Keith puts the stars in the sky, maybe. Keith makes the world better just by making Lance miss him, maybe. Keith, who eats too much cheese and laughs at Hunk’s jokes and who had been so nervous and shy when they first met—

Keith.

Lance stops thinking about their daydream wedding. It starts to make his stomach ache with anxious tumbles and clenching. It wakes him in the middle of the night and he has to scream to himself _stop! stop! stop!_.

It’s a secret.

 

 

* * *

 

Saturday afternoon.

Keith is studying for his French test next week and Lance is pretending to do a math practice exam. Isabel flutters around them in the kitchen, trying and failing to bake macarons and letting Keith and Lance (and Rachel, as she flits in and out of the kitchen) eat the failed ones. Lance’s mother is across the hall in the little office, wild-haired and typing away and muttering in an esoteric mix of spanish and english.

Under the table, Lance has caught one of Keith’s ankles between his feet and across the table, Keith struggles to pretend he’s not ticklish.

He keeps snorting. It makes Lance want to kiss him.

Marco bangs through the front door, and Lance knows it’s Marco because only Marco makes that much noise arriving anywhere.

He’s singing something loud and obnoxious. It makes Lance snicker.

Isabel turns away from her meringue and Veronica comes down the stairs and Lance’s mother emerges from the office and Rachel scuttles out of the living room.

“Gather, family-folk!” Marco yells, striding into the kitchen. He pauses. “And Keith.”

“Hi Marco,” Keith says and finally pulls free of Lance’s foot-hold.

Luis follows, beaming at all of them, and sets a sheet cake down on the table. Lance and Keith scramble to pull their books out of the way.

“There you go, Lance,” Luis says, making a broad gesture that Lance supposes has something to do with the cake.

“Thanks?”

“Cake,” Luis clarifies.

“We all see that,” Veronica says.

Luis turns and beams over his shoulder at her. Lance leans up on the table to look down at the cake. There’s no writing or anything: just flowers and white buttercream frosting.

“Your family’s the best,” Keith tells him.

Lance ignores that. “What’s the cake for?” he calls to his brothers.

“Celebration!” Marco crows.

“What?”

“What’ve you done?” Lance’s mother says, her hands on her hips and her eyebrows furrowed.

“Why do you always think it’s something bad?” Marco asks.

“Because you two can’t be trusted,” Veronica says. She steps into the kitchen and starts the slow work of popping the plastic lid off the cake. “Whatever. I get first slice.”

Isabel crosses her arms and tilts her head. “Boys?” she says.

“We’re _men_ , thank you very much.”

“Lovely, Marco.”

Lance snickers and drops properly back into his chair. He crosses his arms and watches Veronica struggle with the lid.

“Do you want help?” Keith asks.

Veronica just grunts.

“I don’t know what that means,” Keith mutters.

And then there’s a new burst of noise as Lance’s father comes bearing down the hall, pushing a smiling, blushing Lisa in front of him. Kim follows, beaming and looking lovely with her hair up and red flowers tangling from the bun of it.

Luis catches Lisa and she laughs as he swirls into a wavering embrace. He kisses her soundly, loudly, and Lisa breaks away to laugh some more.

“Oh,” says Isabel.

“Oh,” says Keith.

“Oh,” says Rachel, and she starts to giggle and their mother bursts into tears.

“Cake!” Luis cheers, pointing gleefully at the sheet cake on the table. “Just for a party.”

Lance’s jaw drops.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Everyone yells a lot. Keith goes to get Shiro and Adam so they can have some of the enormous and only okay cake.

Marco and Lisa’s best friend were the only ones who got to come. Lance imagines the four of them in a wood-paneled office, Lisa blushing and Luis crying and everyone happy. He imagines Luis picking a sheet cake at Costco at random and parading it with Marco through the store. He imagines Lisa and Luis going to get Lance’s father and Kim, first, and then debating how to tell everyone at Lance’s mother.

“But the wedding!” Lance shouts, trying to be heard over the celebratory din.

“It’s about the marriage,” Isabel tells him, shoving a third slice of cake into his hands. “Not the party.”

“This is a party,” Lance points out.

“So it is.”

So it is.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Luis and Lisa are as happy as Lance has ever seen them. No dress. No flowers or lights or birds. No towering cake or collection of tiny desserts or dancing. Just family and laughter and rings on their fingers and Lisa calling Luis her spouse every chance she can.

The marriage, Lance thinks as he watches them. The marriage.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sunday morning, Lance wakes earlier than everyone. He throws himself out of bed and he brushes his teeth and he washes his face and frowns at his hair. He dresses in a overlarge sweater and he throws on Keith’s scarf and his own jacket and he forgets socks but that’s okay, he’s just going three doors down.

Adam leaves a key for him in the mailbox now. It’s only Lance’s second time (of hundreds, of thousands) using it and he fumbles a little in the early morning, quiet dark. He closes the door as quietly as he can and he slips out of his boots and creeps up the stairs. Keith’s door is closed and the handle creaks when Lance turns it.

Keith is sleeping. A softly breathing lump under his blankets, curled around one of his pillows like he’s having a bad dream. Lance peers down at him for a moment, and then sheds his coat and then his sweater and shivers in his t-shirt.

“Keith,” he whispers.

Keith continues to sleep.

Lance pokes him: one, two, three.

“Guh,” Keith says.

“Budge over.”

“Guh?”

“Budge over!”

Keith rolls onto his back and blinks up at Lance. “Lance?”

“Who else!”

Keith grunts and shuffles aside so Lance can squirrell into the bed next to him. They pull the blankets tight around themselves and Keith presses his forehead to Lance’s and huffs a breath.

“You need to brush your teeth,” Lance mumbles.

“Whatever.”

Keith is back asleep in moments, clutching one of Lance’s hands and breathing slowly. He seems calmer now. Maybe that’s Lance’s doing.

Lance watches him. He’s warm under the blankets with Keith, and with Keith holding on so tightly. He touches the fingertips of his free hand to Keith’s chin, and then his nose, and then brushing over his lips.

“Keith,” he whispers. “Keith.”

Keith breathes and breathes and sleeps and sleeps.

“Keith,” Lance says again. “I love you.”

 


	20. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's a doozy!
> 
> me, while writing this: will i survive this fic? will i survive this chapter? will i survive this PARAGRAPH?

For Christmas, Marco gives Lance his old phone.

“You can stop hogging the computer now,” Rachel says.

“And the phone,” Veronica adds.

“This is my parting present to all three of you,” Marco announces.

Lance rolls his eyes, but he can’t keep the smile off his face.

Marco moves in January, just as the new semester is starting. The move sucks. His little studio apartment is super small and Lance thinks the bathroom used to be a closet. Everyone helps with the packing and the unpacking and the moving and the complaining, and they fill every corner of Marco’s apartment with laughter and noise and food. But both of Lance’s homes feel a little— _less_ with both his brothers out and independent.

The day after the move and the night before classes start again, he crawls under his blankets with his new phone and waits impatiently for his favourite messaging app to download. It’s late. He knows Keith and Hunk won’t be awake. Probably.

He hopes, anyway.

“Lance,” his father says, peeking through the door.

“I’m sleeping!” Lance shouts.

“Go to sleep,” his father says anyways. “Or I’ll take away your phone.”

“You’ll never find it,” Lance grumbles to his pillow.

The app finishes its download. He logs in, typing slowly with his tongue tapping at his teeth. Their group chat loads up first and Lance rereads their earlier messages with a smile: Hunk and Keith back and forth, debating the value of chatspeak, and then the three of them complaining about homework and being tired and all the snow (though everyone knows Keith loves to kick his way through the snow; Lance thinks it makes him feel big). Lance swipes back to the bottom and taps in a quick message: _I’m using my phone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_ He likes tapping each exclamation mark into place and snickers at how huge they look when he sends the message. Nobody replies, of course; they’re both asleep, which is a nice image but leaves Lance feeling a little lonely, a little cold.

He swipes to the left and taps his chat with Keith, marked with red and blue hearts. Keith had hunched and blushed when he titled the chat, just for them, quick and before Shiro or Adam could wander by and see.

“What’re you going to do if my favourite colour changes?” Lance had teased.

“Change the chat title,” Keith had grumbled. “Duh.”

Lance had smacked a wet kiss to his cheek and hidden a grin in Keith’s hair and then they had run outside to watch the snow fall, to try and catch it on their tongues.

He has a new message waiting for him, though he knows what it is. Clear, simple, loving: _goodnight lance i love you._

He swipes up the chat, counting the times they sent _I love you_ back and forth. Each one makes his heart bubble and warm, makes his toes curl with happiness until he’s shoving his phone under his pillow and chewing at the end of his blanket and thinking about Keith.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep. His brain buzzes. His imagination runs wild. He thinks about Keith when he yawns, and Keith when he laughs so hard he chokes, and Keith when he climbs too high. He rolls onto his stomach and hides his smile in his pillow and clutches his blankets so tightly his fingers start to ache. 

Thinking about Keith is almost too much. Lance misses him, every moment he remembers to. 

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning he opens his app and finds a message: _good morning I love you._

He presses his pillow to his face and yells. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Veronica says while Lance putters around the kitchen aimlessly, resolved to eat breakfast but too distracted to think. 

“Nothing!”

“You’re being weird.”

“Leave me alone!”

Veronica throws her hands in the air and leaves him be. 

“Have you met a stranger on the Internet?” Rachel asks. “Are you dating an old person?”

“No!”

“I’m going to take your phone.”

“Eat me.”

 

* * *

 

 

Lance is in love. 

It’s terrible. It’s wonderful. He’s still floating on air and he smiles too big every time he sees Keith and he stays up at night just thinking and thinking and thinking— there’s a tightness in his chest, in all his limbs, that makes him feel like he’s shrinking and growing all at once. He feels unsettled and restless, ready to climb a wall and run screaming through the snow and just cling on to Keith until they’re one person. 

He reads Keith’s messages over and over and over. 

 

* * *

 

 

“You were up late,” Hunk admonishes when they crowd together in the hall, ogling Lance’s new phone. 

“Maybe,” Lance sniffs. 

“Definitely,” Keith grumbles and snatches hold of Lance’s hand. 

Yes, snatches. Finds him lightning-quick and holds on tight, like a snare or a spider or a scary loving plant. Lance’s heart soars. He smiles wide enough to make his face burn. 

“I was happy, okay,” he tells Hunk and Keith. “New phone! Exciting!”

“You’re the first one with a phone,” Hunk says. “And you’ve downloaded zero games.”

“Give me time, okay!”

Keith squeezes his hand and brushes his thumb over Lance’s knuckles. His grip is warm and steadying. Lance feels himself tilting and tripping towards Keith and he puts all his energy into pointing his smile at Hunk. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Hunk says. 

“I’m _fine_!”

 

* * *

 

 

Monday night, he writes Keith first: _good NIGHT and I LOVE YOU._

Tuesday morning, Hunk replies: _we love you too._  

Lance blushes and contemplates changing his name. His face. His—entire self. 

“That was for you,” he tells Keith at lunch when they steal away and trudge through the snow to kiss by the fence. 

“I know,” Keith says. 

“How!”

“Because,” Keith grumbles, ducking his head and nosing at Lance’s cheek. “I know.”

Lance wants to press and hear all the ways Keith knows, but he knows it’s there in the way he tries to bury himself in Keith’s puffy coat and in the way he presses his forehead to Keith’s and in the way he closes his eyes when they kiss. 

And he loves when they kiss! And he hates when the kisses end. 

Tuesday night he gets it right. 

And Wednesday morning Keith replies: _you’re wonderful_.

 

* * *

 

 

“Dad,” Lance says Wednesday night. 

“Uh huh?”

“Can you take me to Keith’s on Saturday? Please?”

His father looks at him. “You’ll be at your mom’s on Sunday.”

“Yeah, but we want to have a sleepover.” He feels childish saying it, insisting it. 

“What about Sunday, then?”

“Sunday is a school night, dad.”

His father smiles. “I guess that’s true.”

 

* * *

 

 

Thursday morning, he tells Keith: “I’m sleeping over on Saturday.”

Keith digs a banana out of his lunch and scowls at a note from Adam that reads: EAT ME OR DIE. “Huh?” he says. 

Lance takes the banana. “I’m coming over on Saturday! To sleep! A sleepover.”

“Oh,” Keith says. And then: “Wait, what?”

“Ask Shiro and Adam if it’s okay.”

“It’ll be okay,” Keith says. “But why?”

“Why what?” Lance peels the banana, humming to himself. He sticks the note on Keith’s chest and Keith bats it away immediately.

“Why’re you coming over?”

Lance pauses and frowns at the half-peeled banana. “You don’t want me to?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Then why are you asking!”

“I just—nevermind! Nevermind.”

Lance takes an enormous bite of the banana and chews it, half-panicked and half-pleased. They don’t look at each other for a moment and then Keith pecks a quick kiss to Lance’s cheek.

“Saturday, huh?” he says.

“Saturday,” Lance agrees.

“Like...a date.”

“It’s a sleepover.”

“A date-sleepover.”

 

* * *

 

 

A date, Lance thinks all through class. He stares at the back of Keith’s head.

A date, he thinks.

A date!

Keith catches him staring once. Lance sticks his tongue out. And Keith just smiles.

Lance thinks: I love him. 

 

* * *

 

 

But _a date_. Have they been on a date? A proper, grown up date? With, like, flowers or something? There’s no dance to hold hands at and kiss outside at, and a date isn’t quite sneaking to the park to kiss and bicker, is it? 

Should Lance bring flowers? Would _Keith_ bring _him_ flowers?

Keith would, if he wanted to. Lance thinks Keith would find a nice picture of flowers and he’d print it out and present it to Lance with an awkward flourish and some stuttering and he’d say _these are for you_ and _no flowers died in the making of this gift_. And Lance thinks he would like that. Yes. He would like that a lot.

He continues to stare at the back of Keith’s head and thinks: bring me flowers!

Keith turns around again. Frowns.

Lance beams.

Keith turns away slowly, rubbing his fingers at his textbook.

Hunk throws an eraser at Lance.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you really going to Keith’s this weekend?” Rachel, ever suspicious, asks.

“Yes,” Lance replies. And then, ever subtle, he continues: “Should I bring flowers to a date?”

“Do you want your date to sneeze?”

“No.”

“There’s your answer,” Rachel sniffs. “Bring candy or something.”

“Candy.”

“Chocolate.”

“Chocolate?”

Rachel nods. “Are you going on a date? A secret date?”

“No,” Lance huffs. “I’m going to Keith’s!”

“Uh huh.”

* * *

 

 

Lance, however, has no money. He could ask his dad. _Dad, can I have money to buy Keith chocolates so he doesn’t think I’m lame and break up with me_? Because that would be the worst.

Lance tries not to think about that.

What kind of chocolates would he buy anyway? Except he knows that Keith likes little chocolates with nuts in the middle of them—hazelnuts, Keith loves hazelnuts, and Mars Bars. He also knows that if he found something silly, like a chocolate rabbit or a chocolate santa or even a chocolate heart, Keith would take it and smile and say _thank you Lance_ and _you’re such a good boyfriend Lance_.

In the middle of dinner he drops his fork and covers his face and yells into his hands.

“Lance?” his father says.

“He’s fine,” Rachel says. “Let him ride it out.”

Kim pats his knee until he calms down and Veronica leans across the table to jab her fork in his direction and say: “You’re up to something.”

“Shenanigans,” his father adds.

“There are no shenanigans!” Lance howls.

* * *

 

 

Thursday night, Keith writes: _goodnight Lance, I love you very much_.

Lance sends back too many kissy emojis.

Friday morning, Keith replies: _good morning Lance. are you going to kiss me that many times?_

Lance counts the emojis and thinks: yes, yes he is.

At school he slaps a locker door in his excitement and turns to Keith and says: “Yes.”

“Yes what?” Hunk says.

“Don’t ask,” Keith mumbles, hunching his shoulders and turning away to hide his blush.

“Are you guys having a secret chat without me?”

“Yes,” Keith and Lance reply together.

Hunk pinches them both.

 

* * *

 

 

Friday night, Keith writes: _when are you coming tomorrow_?

Lance replies: _as soon as i can ok!_

The _Keith ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ is typing_ message taunts Lance for a long time, and then Keith says: _ok but what actual time is that?_

* * *

 

 

He has a hard time sleeping.

He tosses and turns and hugs his pillow and stares at his wall and he thinks: tomorrow.

Tomorrow, he’ll snuggle up next to Keith and fall asleep in Keith’s bed and roll himself up in Keith’s blankets. Tomorrow, he’ll shut Keith’s doors and hold Keith’s hands and kiss Keith until his lips fall off. And on Sunday, he’ll wake up with Keith snoring next to him and Keith’s bed feeling too small and all the world seeming quiet and snow-covered while they’re there, together.

He rolls onto his back and digs the heels of his hands against his eyes and smiles and smiles and smiles.

 

* * *

 

 

Saturday morning, he wakes up well before dawn and can’t go back to sleep. He tugs at his cheeks and wiggles his toes and then he throws himself out of bed. He packs his backpack. Unpacks it. Packs it again. Dumps it out on the floor.

He takes a shower. He brushes his teeth. He stares at his face in the mirror until he starts to feel anxious and runs back to his room to properly pack.

And then, dressed and refreshed and energetic, he dashes into the kitchen and startles Kim and his father while they’re waiting for the coffee maker to do its coffee making thing.

“Good morning!” Lance says. “Can we go now?”

His father blinks blearily at him. “Huh?”

“To Keith’s!”

“It’s—six in the morning, Lance.”

Kim covers her mouth to hide her smile but Lance sees it anyway.

“I know,” he says and drops into a chair at the table. “Can we _please_ go?”

The coffee maker sputters. His father squints at him. “What’re you up to?” he says.

“Nothing!”

“Alex,” Kim admonishes.

“I mean it,” Lance’s father continues and Lance can see him slowly waking up, the wheels behind his eyes turning. “Does Keith have a new video game? A dog?”

“No dog,” Lance chirps.

“Does he—good lord, does he have a scooter? Are you going to ride his scooter?” His father twitches. “Wear a helmet, please. Wear—a helmet.”

“It’s winter, dad.”

“Let your father drink his coffee,” Kim says. “And then we’ll take you to see Keith.”

Lance beams.

“A skateboard?” his father mumbles at the counter. “A lizard? Does Keith have a lizard?”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s still dark when they leave and Lance’s father is still spiralling so Kim drives, humming as they go. Lance tries not to bounce in his seat and fidgets with his seat belt and pokes at his backpack.

“Scary movie marathon?” his father asks.

“Maybe!”

“A cat?”

“Hunk has a cat.”

His father twists in his seat to look back at Lance. “Lance,” he says. “Does Keith hide dirty magazines in his room?”

“Christ, Alex,” Kim sighs, then resumes her humming.

Lance scowls. “He better not!”

“He’s at an age,” his father says. “He’s—exploring things.” He pauses. “Are _you_ exploring things?”

Lance shrinks against his seat.

“Because you can talk to me about it. I’m—a good listener. Actually, so are your brothers—”

“Dad,” Lance mumbles. “Please stop talking.”

“Okay,” his father says, turning back around. “Okay. Let’s pretend I never said any of that.”

“I need soap for my brain.”

“You’ll both be fine,” Kim sing-songs.

* * *

 

Kim parks three doors down from Lance’s mother’s house and Lance and his father press their faces to the windows.

“I think they’re all sleeping,” Kim says.

“That’s okay,” Lance says. “Adam leaves a key out for me.”

“I think,” his father says slowly. “Adam does that because you visit too early.”

“It’s fine,” Lance says and snatches his backpack. “Thank you for bringing me!”

“Uh huh,” his father says.

“Have fun,” Kim says.

Lance trips climbing out of the car and falls in a snowbank. He scrambles out. Waves. And darts up the sidewalk to Keith’s front door. He digs out the spare key, twists to wave one more time, then fiddles with the lock.

It seems to take a long time. His breath mists. He shivers once and then smiles.

The house is quiet when he closes the door behind him. He holds his breath, catches his breath, and listens to his father and Kim drive away. He could pop to his other home, three doors down, and wait for the sun to rise. Surprise his mother and step-mother and con Isabel into making pancakes, just for him.

He slips out of his boots and creeps up the stairs to Keith’s room.

Keith is splayed out on his back when Lance finds him: the blankets tangled around his legs and his fingers twitching and his hair looking ridiculous against the pillow. Lance snickers and shrugs out of his coat, and his sweater, and Keith’s scarf. He nudges Keith awake.

“Keith.”

A groan.

“Budge over.”

“Oh my god…”

“Just budge!”

Keith grumbles and groans and maybe swears, but Lance doesn’t hold that against him, and he rolls towards the wall and haphazardly shoves the pillow Lance’s direction.

And that, somehow, makes Lance blush. And the blush spreads from his cheeks to his neck and all the way down to his hands, tickling at his palms and making the floor feel shaky under his feet. He swallows. He fidgets.

Keith twists back to look at him, frowning with one eye open. “Are you coming?”

“Uh huh.”

Lance scrambles down next to Keith and drags a blanket over them both and cuddles as close as he dares to Keith’s back, pressing his fingers against the ridge of Keith’s spine and nosing at the wild mess of his hair.

“Keith,” he whispers, his heart thudding.

“It’s sleeping time, Lance,” Keith groans. 

“It’s sleeping time,” Lance echoes teasingly.

“Rude.”

Lance drags his fingers against Keith’s sleep shirt, feels the wrinkles where it rides up a little, thinks he knows what it looks like when Keith sits up in it and glowers at the world. He shuffles closer. He can feel his heart: it’s big, in his chest; huge and beating and hard. He’s sweaty, and he’s afraid he’s still blushing, and he tries again: “Keith.”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing.”

Keith rolls over then, almost squishing Lance until they readjust. Lance begs his blush to vanish. Melt away like snow.

“What’s wrong?” Keith whispers.

“My heart’s beating,” Lance replies, too honestly.

Keith blinks. He takes a breath. “Mine too,” he says. “Want to feel?”

Yes, Lance thinks.

“Yes,” he says.

He sees the glimmer of Keith’s smile in the dark.

“Okay,” Keith says, and it sounds like filler. Like Kim’s humming or the coffee maker gurgling or Veronica singing in the shower. It’s unfamiliar in its familiarity.

Keith takes one of his hands, gentle and slow, and presses it to his own chest. Lance’s blush intensifies. He feels vaguely dizzy.

And then, softly, he feels Keith’s heart against his palms, steady and calming.

He sags against the bed. Keith’s fingers rest lightly against his wrist and Keith’s smile is a landmark in the early morning.

“Keith,” Lance says again.

“Yeah?”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Keith mumbles. His fingers twitch and then press more firmly against Lance’s wrist. “You’re early, though.”

“Well,” Lance huffs. “I _missed_ you.”

“How’d you get here?”

“My dad drove me! Well, Kim drove. My dad just freaked out about lizards and dirty magazines—”

“Dirty magazines?”

“Don’t ask. Anyways. Yeah. They drove me.”

“That’s nice,” Keith says. “But they didn’t think that was—weird?”

“What?”

“You coming over,” Keith continues, and the touch of his fingers becomes a hold on Lance’s wrist, startling Lance’s heart into its rapid beat again. “Like, super early.”

“It’s not _that_ early.”

“The sun’s not up.”

“ _You’re_ not up,” Lance says with a roll of his eyes. “And _no_ , they did _not_ think this was _weird_.”

“Huh.”

“It’s normal,” Lance insists. “Everything’s normal. Just—you know.”

“Different?” Keith says softly.

“Different,” Lance agrees in a breath and nudges his nose to Keith’s. Their knees bump.

“I haven’t brushed my teeth,” Keith mumbles.

“Oh well,” Lance says.

“Oh well,” Keith agrees. 

“You smell good,” Lance says. Keith’s heart beats and beats and beats under his palm, Keith’s shirt is soft under his fingers.

“Don’t smell me.”

“I can’t help it!”

“What do I smell like?” Keith asks, his eyebrows furrowing.

“I don’t know,” Lance admits. His brain does a whirl, a twirl. “You, I guess.”

“Lance?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to kiss you.”

“With your stinky morning breath mouth?”

“Yes,” Keith insists, and something bursts in Lance. Bursts, like a gleaming bubble of something he can’t name. Bursts, and leaves streaks of sparks on his skin and under it and maybe behind his eyes.

It’s almost painful. Some part of him wants to run, but another part is louder and needier and wants it, wants to sink into the bursting, burning, vibrating feeling and just—

Be.

“Okay,” Lance says, louder than he wanted to.

“Lance,” Keith says again.

“Yeah?”

“Nothing,” Keith mutters and kisses him.

It’s just a peck. Just a quick kiss. A soft press of Keith’s lips to his and a moment of Lance’s fingers dragging against Keith’s shirt.

“Oh,” Lance says and forgets to be embarrassed at the disappointment in his voice. “Is that—”

“No,” Keith cuts in, quick and sharp, and brushes his fingertips over Lance’s cheek. “Just—” 

But nothing follows, just something frustrated and almost noiseless from Keith and a clenched, messy breath from Lance, and then the slow tangle of Keith’s hand in his hair. Lance can feel Keith’s other hand twitch against him, the slight drag of Keith’s nails against his shirt in a bizarre copy of Lance, and he thinks he can even feel the moment Keith decides to kiss him again.

It’s firmer, this second kiss.

Firmer, like the first bite of a cookie as it starts to cool, a trick of his teeth and his tongue and then a blossoming warmth from underneath the crust. Lance thinks of Keith, licking ice cream from a spoon, and Keith, digging through a box of cookies for one that feels just right, and Keith, with his hand in Lance’s hair and his fingers pressing against the back of Lance’s head and his lips—

Keith pulls back again, but not far. He’s holding his breath. He nudges their noses and his heart seems to quiver under Lance’s palm.

“I was thinking about cookies,” Lance blurts.

“ _Cookies_?”

“Cookies,” Lance insists breathlessly. “Fresh cookies. And ice cream—”

“Are you hungry?” Keith grumbles.

“Do it again.”

“Not while you’re thinking about—cookies!”

“Keith,” Lance says. “Just kiss me again.”

“Is it boring?” Keith continues. “I can get you cookies, I guess.”

“Oh my god,” Lance sighs. “Just stay still.”

There’s a moment, just a second, where the little space between them feels huge, like Lance has to wade through jelly just to get to Keith and his mouth and his frown. He’s warm, under the blanket and with Keith’s arm around him, and he’s impatient to the point of feeling sick, and he’s scared.

He’s full of fear.

But it all vanishes when he kisses Keith, and he hears Keith make a soft, surprised sound, and feels Keith’s fingers tangle in his hair. Keith’s lips are soft, and his skin is warm, and one kiss becomes many when he pulls back and Keith follows. Lance likes the way their noses bump, and he likes the growing, crowded feeling of Keith so close and the knock of their knees under Keith’s blankets. 

It’s nothing like kissing in the snow, in the park, with laughter and frosted breath caught between them. It’s not a rushed peppering of kisses, in between Keith’s grumbles and his smiles and with the anxious threat of anyone seeing them, anyone stopping them. Lance is standing, suddenly, at the edge of something huge and open and if Keith kisses him long enough he’ll forget to stay steady and he’ll fall.

Keith would fall with him, he thinks. Keith would fall with him happily.

“Lance,” Keith mumbles and Lance feels his own name against his lips and shivers. Keith says it again—“ _Lance_ ”—and his fingers slip from Lance’s hair and trace a burning line along Lance’s neck—like fire, like a fever. Like they’ve been running in the sun with nothing but heated pavement in front of them.

He wants to chase his name on Keith’s lips, find out where Keith keeps his voice. He wants to whisper Keith’s name and let Keith feel this, all this, too, but instead he sighs, and he sags, and he feels the blankets dragging him under.

His sigh echoes in his ears, sounding alien and strange and uncomfortable.

He pulls back so quickly he teeters at the edge of the bed, his fingers dangling against Keith’s chest like he’s afraid to let go properly and Keith’s hand falling away from his neck, from his chin.

Keith blinks at him, his eyes huge and shining in the dark.

Lance hears him swallow.

“Don’t fall off the bed,” Keith whispers.

Lance nods.

He can feel his pulse in his throat. His heart is back to beating a wild fury in his chest.

If he went outside, he’d melt away winter.

He shuffles closer again, the blanket dragging around his shoulders and arms, the pillow fluffing against his cheek. He presses his palm flat to Keith’s chest again and feels the return thunder of Keith’s heart and thinks: _oh_.

Keith touches his wrist and then pulls away, tucking his fists against his stomach in an anxious, familiar gesture that makes him seem small.

“I’m going to roll over,” Lance says and pulls back his hand. He curls his fingers against his palm, digs his nails into his skin briefly. “Let’s go to sleep.”

“Okay,” Keith says.

The bed is too small. Lance almost topples off, again, rolling onto his other side and pressing his burning face against the edge of Keith’s pillow. He holds his breath. Keith fixes the blanket around them and slips an arm over Lance, his hold heavy and light all at once. Warm.

“I love you,” Keith whispers to the back of Lance’s head.

Lance shivers. He squeezes his eyes shut. “I love you too,” he mumbles against the bed.

Keith sighs, and Lance remembers to breathe.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep. All he can think is: Keith.

 

* * *

 

 

Shiro wakes them up, later, and he looms over the bed and smiles down at them and Lance thinks, panicked and sleepy: I shouldn’t be here.

He clenches his jaw and backs into Keith, who grumbles something incoherent and tightens his arm around Lance. They could be enough of an anchor, Lance thinks. Shiro couldn’t shoo him away, like this.

“You’re here early,” Shiro says to him, leaning back with his hand on his hip.

The panic dies away. Lance relaxes.

Shiro, he remembers, would never shoo him away.

“Impatient,” he says by way of explanation.

“Uh huh,” Shiro says, laughter dancing at the edges of his lips.

“We’re sleeping!” Keith grunts, almost shouts, against Lance’s back.

Lance hides his snicker against the bed.

“Uh huh,” Shiro says again. “We’re heading out. We’ll be back in a while. Eat whatever you’d like and don’t set the house on fire.”

“Okay,” Lance replies automatically. And then: “You’re leaving?”

Shiro shrugs. “We had plans for the day,” he says. “Adam’s bitter.”

“Have fun,” Keith grumbles sleepily.

Shiro shakes his head and leaves, Lance blinking after him.

The door shuts with a click. He can hear Adam and Shiro talking quietly back and forth down the stairs and to the front door, and then the front door closing and Adam complaining from outside.

Keith sighs and sags against Lance’s back and Lance knows, just _knows_ , he’s going back to sleep.

He rolls over and pushes at Keith’s shoulder.

“Guh,” Keith grumbles and presses his face to Lance’s collarbone.

“Keith,” Lance says, poking at him.

“Guh, Lance! I said, _guh_!”

“Shiro and Adam left!”

Keith sighs. “Uh huh,” he says, sounding so much like Shiro Lance experiences something a little like whiplash.

He stores that away for later teasing.

“You didn’t tell me they were leaving!”

“They’re leaving!” Keith huffs and tightens his hold on Lance, dragging them closer in a suffocating hug. “There, now you know. Go back to sleep!”

“Where are they going?”

“Out! There’s a thing at the science centre Adam wanted to be grossed out by and then they’re gonna see a movie!”

“Without you?”

Keith groans and rolls away and crowds against the wall instead of Lance. Lance follows in a shuffling wiggle, dragging the blankets with him. “I was going,” Keith grumbles to the wall. “But now I’m not!”

Lance frowns and rubs idly at Keith’s shoulder. Keith’s hair pokes back at him, wild and annoyed like Keith himself, and Lance wants to brush his fingers through it, straighten it out and let it settle. “Because I wanted to come over?”

“Because I wanted to spend time with you,” Keith huffs. He reaches back and snatches Lance’s arm and pulls it over him. “Just hug me and go back to sleep please.”

Lance noses at the back of Keith’s head until Keith’s hair starts to tickle his nose toward a sneeze. “Keith,” he says.

“Uh huh?”

“If Adam and Shiro aren’t home—”

“They’ll come back later.”

“Yeah, yeah. But if they aren’t here _now_ …” Lance trails off and presses his lips together, trying to push away the smile bubbling over his cheeks. He snickers.

“What?”

“Think of all the stuff we could do!” Lance says gleefully, quickly, to the back of Keith’s head. “Just you and me!”

Keith jerks, and then sits up so suddenly he falls over and knocks the wind out of Lance. Lance bats at his shoulders with a shout.

Keith scrambles off the bed and—trips. He presses a round of curses into the carpet.

“See,” Lance says, leaning over the edge of the bed. “Stuff like that. Shiro would totally give you a face if he heard that.”

Keith rolls onto his back with a groan, rubbing his palms against his cheeks. “Lance,” he says.

“Keith,” Lance replies. “We can—we can kiss in every room of the house!”

Keith rubs harder at his cheeks, his eyes squeezed shut so he misses Lance’s grin.

“And then,” Lance continues. “We can do it again!”

Keith throws his arms out and presses his hands against the carpet and blinks up at his ceiling. He’s pink—delightfully, painfully pink, and Lance wants to throw himself off the bed and poke at Keith’s cheeks until his irritation banishes his blush.

Neither of them move.

“Keith?” Lance tries. He tosses the pillow at Keith.

It lands pathetically on his stomach and Keith immediately hugs it.

“Are you alive?”

Keith sits up, arms and legs wrapped around his pillow, and frowns at Lance.

Lance hunches and tucks himself a little further under Keith’s blankets. “What?” he grumbles.

“Nothing,” Keith says. “Nothing!”

“Liar.”

“I’m going to go shower!” Keith announces and begins the wobbly struggle of getting to his feet. “And—brush my teeth.”

“Okay,” Lance says.

“And then we can, I don’t know, make breakfast or something.”

“Or something.”

Keith fluffs the pillow, frowning still, blushing still, and tosses it back on the pillow. Lance immediately digs his chin into it, blinking up at Keith.

“I’ll be back,” Keith mumbles, scratching at one of his arms.

“Okay,” Lance says. “I’m going to snoop around your room.”

Keith rolls his eyes and turns away, his feet dragging against the carpet. He makes a funny picture, in his baggy sleep clothes and with his elbows and his hair poking in every direction. Lance watches him go, comfortably tangled in Keith’s sheets and on Keith’s bed.

And then Keith stops, just at his closed door, and straightens suddenly.

He whirls back.

Lance blinks. “What?”

Keith shakes his head and hurries back to the side of the bed and pecks a quick, messy kiss to Lance’s cheek. “Good morning,” he says in a rush. “I love you.”

Lance beams.

Keith ducks his head and runs from the room, fumbling with the knob of his door for a moment, and Lance shouts to his back: “I love you, too!”

 

* * *

 

 

Keith looks normal again, after his shower and after brushing his teeth. Lance makes a big show of inspecting his mouth until Keith pinches him and then they wander downstairs. Keith cooks some of the little breakfast sausages he likes and Lance fries two eggs and neither of them set the house on fire. They poke around the fridge together and decide on milk with their breakfasts, and Keith thoughtfully warms Lance’s for him.

“What do you want to do today?” Keith says while fighting with the ketchup container. He smacks it twice. It farts.

“I don’t know,” Lance says, nibbling at one of his sausages and watching Keith struggle. “Whatever we want.”

Keith looks up long enough to frown at him and then a glob of ketchup slumps out of the container and next to his eggs. 

They do the dishes and they make the bed and then they dig through Lance’s backpack for anything fun.

“Homework,” Keith says with a grimace. “Ugh.”

“We can do homework tomorrow,” Lance decides.

They shove Lance’s books under Keith’s bed and go back downstairs.

It’s snowing, light and fluffy and white. They peek out the front window at it and briefly consider going outside, but it’s warm and comfortable in the house.

They draw the curtains shut. Keith sneezes. Lance laughs at his scrunched up face and Keith rolls his eyes and drags Lance onto the couch so they slump together, sweaty and happy in their comfortable clothes and with their legs tangled. Lance laughs some more, tries to swallow his giddiness so it turns into giggles that he hides in Keith’s shoulder.

And Keith kisses his head, holding tight, and they settle back against the couch in an uneasy lump. Lance toys with the hem of Keith’s sweater and Keith brushes his fingers through Lance’s hair and he whispers: “Lance.”

Lance lifts his head expectantly and Keith kisses him, sweet and warm and quick. And then again. Lance sighs and leans into Keith’s hold and Keith catches him, like he always does, and he touches Lance’s cheek, like he’s started to do.

Lance smiles, leaning back with his fingers digging against the couch. “I like kissing you,” he says.

Keith blushes, a soft pink, and nods. 

“Every room in the house,” Lance says and kisses the corner of Keith’s mouth.

“Not _every_ room.”

“Fine! Not the bathroom.”

 

* * *

 

 

The same, but different.

 

* * *

 

 

They make ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch and use the nice, semi-sweet and always delicious bread that Adam sometimes buys. Keith puts too much cheese in his and ignores Lance when he points this out. Lance picks off the crusts of his bread and eats that first while they wander back to the living room and crowd together on the couch.

There’s nothing super fun on TV. Keith gets up and starts digging through the DVD piles in the drawers under the television, and Lance leaves his sandwich half-finished to go and help.

“Maybe we don’t need a movie,” Lance says, licking his lips and watching Keith toss another movie onto the “no thank you” pile.

Keith shrugs.

“We could,” Lance starts slowly, sitting back and hugging his knees. He hides his smile against one knee, playing at bashful even while a flutter of anxiety (or impatience) starts in his stomach. “I don’t know—”

Keith looks up at him, frowning.

Lance smiles some more.

“Lance,” Keith says, closing the drawer.

“Keith,” Lance replies.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

“I think,” Lance says, rubbing his chin against his knee. “You should kiss me until my face falls off. Or yours. Doesn’t matter.”

Keith smiles.

This is new, too, Lance thinks when Keith tackles him to the floor and startles a laugh out of both of them. Keith’s weight, and his focus, and the feel of his smile against Lance’s. Lance clutches his sweater sleeves and mumbles _I love you_ every moment he can. Keith seems to swallow it down, use it to warm his next kiss, the next nudge of his nose to Lance’s or press of their cheeks. Lance hopes he’s storing the _I love you_ s where he can find them easily, where he can use them to keep him warm in the dead of winter.

“Lance,” Keith says, pulling back once.

Lance drags him back down, impatient and cold without his kisses.

And then the doorbell rings.

They freeze.

It rings again and they sit up together, Lance still clutching Keith’s sleeves and Keith’s blush still high on his cheeks.

Another ring: _ding-dong-ding_.

“Who is it?” Lance whispers.

Keith grimaces.

They go to the door, leaning on each other and standing on their tip-toes to take turns peering out the peephole (though neither of them can see anything).

Another ring startles them both and then comes Hunk’s voice through the door: “Hello! Open the door please!” A pause. “I know you guys are there!”

Keith tears open the door. Hunk, clutching a tote bag and his backpack, smiles.

“Hi guys,” Hunk says and shoulders his way in. “I came for the sleepover.”

“Oh,” Keith says.

“What!” Lance shrieks.

* * *

 

 

Keith makes Hunk a ham and cheese sandwich.

“That’s too much cheese,” Hunk says.

“That’s what I told him,” Lance says.

“It’s good!” Keith insists and adds more cheese.

At the table, Hunk unpacks his tote bag full of snacks and lasagna from his mom and puzzles and a new board game.

“Did you bring any movies?” Keith asks, delivering his over-cheesed sandwich.

“No,” Hunk says. “I didn’t know we needed any.”

Keith shrugs.

“Hunk,” Lance starts when Hunk begins peeling cheese out of his sandwich. Keith takes every piece he sets aside.

“Hi Lance.”

Lance frowns. He counts to three. “Hunk,” he tries again. “You know I love you, yeah?”

“Yup,” Hunk says and watches Keith gobble down a cheese slice. “That’s going to make you sick.”

“Love is healing!” Lance scoffs.

“He means me and my cheese,” Keith says, licking his lips. “He’s wrong.”

Hunk shakes his head.

“Hunk!” Lance tries again, a little loudly. “Why are you here!”

Hunk and Keith look at him. Lance shrinks and snatches up a cheese piece before Keith can. He nibbles it.

“I came for the sleepover,” Hunk says, leaning his elbows on the table.

“But,” Lance starts and then closes his mouth.

“Yup,” Hunk says. “That’s what I thought.”

“You need more cheese,” Keith decides.

“I don’t!”

“Well, maybe I do.”

“You don’t either!”

Lance sighs and drops down into a chair and glowers at Hunk, finishing his pilfered cheese slice in slow bites. Hunk keeps on smiling. Keith pouts at the fridge and then begins rifling through the puzzles Hunk brought.

“Yikes,” he says. “This one’s super big.”

“Right? It might take all weekend,” Hunk says, looking straight at Lance. “And _all_ of our focus.”

“Hunk,” Lance says. “What are you doing?”

“Interrupting a smooch fest.”

Lance chokes.

Keith knocks over two boxes of puzzles and swears.

“Great, Keith,” Hunk says. “Double the puzzle fun!”

Keith swears some more.

“Look,” Hunk says, tapping at his sandwich plate. “You guys didn’t invite me. I know. But I came anyways.”

“Smooch fest,” Lance says, shrinking against his seat.

“Because I, lo and behold, remembered that Adam and Shiro were going to be _out_ and Keith would be _here_ because you had somehow convinced him to forego a science centre adventure.”

“He forgot,” Keith mumbles, looking down at the mess at his feet.

“And _you_ ,” Hunk continues, twisting to frown at Keith. “Didn’t bother to tell him.”

Keith makes a noise that reminds Lance of angry Frank the Cat.

“There’s no smooch fest!” Lance shouts, but he knows it’s too late. “We’re just! Spending time together!”

“Uh huh,” Hunk says.

“And even if we were smooching! Oh well!”

“Oh well.”

“Yeah! Oh well!”

Keith crouches and pokes at the mussed puzzle pieces. He makes another pathetic noise.

“Why didn’t you guys tell me!” Hunk says, throwing his hands in the air. “I would’ve kept the secret! I endured unhappy Keith and Lance freak outs and literally _years_ of your crush on anyone who kind-of-sort-of-maybe had hair like Keith—”

Lance sputters. “That never happened!”

Keith peers over the table at him, blinking. “Really, Lance?” he says, and there’s something bizarre in his voice that makes Lance hot all over. He sinks a little further down in his seat.

“Oh my god,” Hunk says. “Don’t do this in front of me.”

“Do what!”

“Be all—” Hunk breaks off and made a vague, confused gesture at the table.

“Ham and cheesey?” Lance offers.

“Yeah! Ham and cheesey!” Hunk gags. “Gross.”

“It’s not gross,” Keith grumbles, disappearing again.

“Yeah,” Lance agrees, crossing his arms. “It’s nice! We like being ham and cheesey!”

Hunk gags again.

“And if you knew! Why are you interrupting us, huh! We were having a perfectly fine ham and cheesey day—”

“Being all kissy-kissy,” Hunk grumbles.

Keith bangs his head against the table.

“Yeah, well,” Lance huffs. “If I want to be kissy-kissy with my boyfriend, I can be kissy-kissy with my boyfriend!”

“Kissy-kissy,” Keith shouts from the floor. “Is officially banned! No one’s allowed to say it ever again!”

Lance and Hunk ignore him.

“Sure you can,” Hunk scoffs. “But you dum-dums have decided _not to tell anyone_. Not even me!”

“Sorry Hunk,” Keith says pathetically.

“It’s ours,” Lance insists, even while guilt churns in his belly and makes him glower at his knees. “It’s ours to tell or not to tell!”

“Uh huh,” Hunk says again. “But apparently I’m the only one who noticed you two are lovesick—”

“We are not!”

“—and sneaking off to go smooch whenever you can and it’s annoying because I’d like to be like, ‘aw that’s cute I’m so happy for my weirdo best friends’ but instead—instead!—I have to be, like, responsible or whatever and make sure you guys don’t smooch too much!”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Lance says.

“Tell an adult so I don’t have to be one!”

“What! No!”

Keith drags himself back up just enough to prop his chin on the table and look between them. “Hunk,” he moans. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because,” Hunk sniffs. “You guys didn’t invite me.”

He eats his sandwich.

 

* * *

 

 

It takes a long time to sort out the pieces Keith knocked over. The three of them sit cross-legged on the floor and compare pieces to the two pictures and set them one way or another or just shove them out of the way to deal with later. Adam and Shiro come home when the sun starts to set and find them still on the floor, bickering about where one piece goes.

“Hunk,” Shiro says, pleased. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

“I changed my mind,” Hunk replies, smiling easily. “Thank you very much for having me.”

“Anytime.”

Adam sits next to Keith and munches on leftover popcorn while they continue to sift through the pieces.

 

* * *

 

 

At the end of the day, while they’re making a pile of blankets and pillows on Keith’s floor, Hunk rubs his chin a little bashfully and says: “I can go talk to Shiro or something for a bit.”

Lance looks at him.

“If you guys want to, you know.” Hunk grimaces, and then makes a wet kissing sound with his lips.

“Hunk!”

“I’m trying to be helpful!”

“You literally came to stop the ham and cheese!”

Hunk squirms and sits back and pokes at a pillow. “Well,” he says. “You know. If the adults aren’t around to make you guys keep the door open or whatever—”

“Why does the door need to be open?” Keith mumbles.

“So they can see if you’re kissing!”

“Why do they need to see?”

“I don’t know!” Hunk throws himself back and pointed three times at the ceiling. “That’s just what’s supposed to happen!”

Lance swats him with a pillow. “You’re not an adult,” he says. “You don’t have to do—whatever!”

“Except,” Hunk says to the ceiling. “What if you guys spend too much time together? What if it goes too fast? What if you break up?”

“We won’t,” Lance insists. Keith shuffles next to him and takes his hand, twisting their fingers together.

Hunk leans up on his elbows and watches them. He frowns. And then he flops back again. “Fine,” he says. “Fine! I’m still going to keep an eye on you.”

“Why!”

“Somebody has to!”

 

* * *

 

 

That keeps Lance awake. He settles between Hunk and Keith and feels Keith snuggle up to his side and listens to Hunk snore at his shoulder and he stares up at Keith’s stars and he thinks, over and over: _somebody has to_.

Maybe. The morning, crowded together on Keith’s bed and Keith’s fingers in his hair—the morning is still on his skin, still raising fire in his blood when he thinks too much on it. Lance tries to close his eyes against the memory of it, but it’s hard: he thinks he could wake Keith and press him to the floor and kiss him a thousand times and not burn away the memory of Keith’s hand on his neck.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, maybe.

On the couch, with the snow falling out of sight behind the curtains, and with Keith’s arms tight around him, and Keith’s kisses warm on his lips—

And then on the living room floor, the DVDs scattered and the television quiet: Keith’s weight over him, like Keith was suddenly both huge and small, and Keith’s lips insistent and soft, and Lance’s own hands clinging like, maybe, he hasn’t before—

Lance holds his breath and studies the stars.

“Lance,” Keith whispers at his ear. He touches Lance’s wrist.

“Yeah?” Lance whispers to the ceiling.

“You okay?”

“I think so,” Lance mumbles and rolls onto his side so they’re nose-to-nose. Keith’s hand moves to his shoulder and rests there, gentle and warm, almost a hug, and Lance wants to come that little bit closer and tuck himself against Keith, press kisses to his chin—

“Yeah?” Keith says.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Kissing you.”

Keith makes a small huff of a sound, almost like a laugh. “That makes me happy,” he says.

“Good,” Lance says, his cheeks warming and his smile blossoming. He nudges his nose to Keith’s, their growing pre-signal for kisses and _I love you_ s.

“It’s okay, I think,” Keith whispers, his hand tightening for a moment at Lance’s shoulder. “If we don’t tell anyone, I mean.”

“Hunk knows,” Lance says, the pout coming through in his voice before he can crush it.

“Hunk was always going to know,” Keith says. “He told me to ask you to the dance, you know.”

Lance blinks. “Then why didn’t you?”

“I was scared,” Keith huffs. “And then, you went with Halya!”

“I went with Halya ‘cause I thought you were going to go with that boy you love!”

“ _You’re_ that boy I love!”

“Oh,” Lance says, and the heat becomes a proper blush and he feels it spreading over his cheeks and his nose and down his neck and up and under his hair.

“Yeah.”

“You’re the boy I love, too,” he says, his heart pounding and his blood roaring to life.

“I know,” Keith says. “Now, I know. That makes me happy, too.”

“Good,” Lance breathes. “I want you to be happy.”

Keith hums and then he pulls away, getting slowly to his feet so Lance can see the odd shape of him in the night, the slope of his back and the movement of his head. He holds a hand out and Lance takes it and lets Keith pull him up, and up, and up.

Maybe that’s it. A climb, rather than a fall.

“Where’re we going?” Lance says.

“I can’t kiss you with Hunk right there,” Keith says, twisting their fingers together and guiding Lance to the bedroom door. “It seems rude.”

Lance bites down his giggles and bites them down again as Keith grimaces, closing the door too slowly for either of them. They shuffle down the hall together, aimless and disorganized and making Lance’s ears buzz like he’s just woken from a dream.

They settle on the couch, again, with the curtains pulled open now and the winter moonlight streaming in. Keith touches Lance’s freckles, his lips, and Lance leans into him because it’s so natural, now, it’s so easy. Keith always catches him and pulls him in and soothes something restless and insistent in Lance.

Lance sets his hands at Keith’s hips, hesitant and uncertain and then he feels Keith’s smile and Keith’s hands in his hair and Keith’s kiss drowning out all the fear in his head.

“This is for us,” Lance tells him, clutching now the hem of Keith’s sleep shirt and feeling the tease of Keith’s skin against his knuckles.

Keith nods, his thumbs tracing Lance’s freckles and his lips so close it’s like they never broke their kiss.

“I don’t want to tell, yet,” Lance continues, riding the little tide of courage that’s appeared. “I want this to be for you and me, and I don’t want to share.”

“Okay,” Keith says. “It’s ours.”

Theirs.

 

* * *

 

 

They creep back to bed when sleep starts to pull at Lance and makes him sag in Keith’s arms and rub his cheek sleepily against Keith’s shoulder. Their steps are careful up the stairs and back to Keith’s room, and they settle slowly back next to Hunk.

“Ours,” Keith says against Lance’s neck and Lance nods sleepily.

“Ours,” he agrees in a yawn and reaches for Hunk in the dark so they fall asleep in a restful unit of three.

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning, they do their homework together and complain together and eat pancakes together. Shiro is _not_ helpful, but Lance thinks he’s being unhelpful on purpose.

“I hate math,” Keith grumbles, stabbing at his worksheet with a pencil. “Really. It gets worse every year and I hate it.”

“You need it,” Lance tells him and hooks their ankles together under the table.

“Debatable.”

“You’re so grumpy,” Hunk says cheerfully.

Grumpy, and silly, and shy and warm. And all Lance’s.

Lance beams at his homework.

 

* * *

 

 

“Lance,” Keith says when he walks Lance home.

“Yeah?”

Keith grimaces and squeezes Lance’s hand and stomps on a stray piece of ice and then he says, in a rush and almost too quiet to hear: “You can look at the postcard.”

Lance stops. His neck heats. “Oh,” he says.

“If you want to.”

“I do,” he says. “I really do.”

Keith chews his lip and nods and then meets Lance’s eye and says: “Don’t tell me if you do.”

“You don’t want to be there when I read it?”

“No,” Keith sighs. “I’ll die if I do that.”

Well. They can’t have that.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance waits, even though he’s impatient enough to scream. He greets his siblings and endures Rachel’s suspicions and downloads some games that Veronica suggests. He helps his step-mother with dinner and asks her about her week and endures his mother’s marvelling at how much he’s growing, how big he seems. He sits in the living room after dinner and stares at the spot where Marco usually practices and feels cold and uncomfortable and quiet, so he calls his brother and puts him on speaker and Marco plays them all something he’s working on.

It’s soft. It’s sad. Lance feels like he carries it with him to bed.

And in his room, he pulls the wrapped postcard from its place in his desk, kept safe among photos and notes and a dictionary, and he lays it on his pillow and stares at it.

He checks the group chat and finds Hunk has sent seven pictures of Frank and Keith has excitedly responded to each. He checks his conversation with Keith, alone, and finds that Keith has sent him an update on the evening ( _adam says the exhibtion was super nasty and he says i can’t spell exhibtuib but surprise it bugs him so im doing it on purpose_ ) and a reiteration of his promise ( _you can look at it i’m not scared_ ) and then a goodnight ( _i love you and i miss you_ ).

Lance sets his phone aside and closes his eyes and presses the fingers of his left hand to his lips. If he concentrates, he thinks he can feel Keith in front him, leaning forward and kissing him quickly and softly and sweetly; kissing him firmly and warmly and filling Lance with promises.

He opens his eyes and reaches for the card and tries to calm his pounding heart.

 _Lance_ , in Keith’s older, unsteadier writing. _Lance_ , his name looking the way it sounds when Keith whispers it. _Lance, It rained this morning. Rain always makes me think of you_ , crookedly but earnestly. _I hope it’s raining for you, now, and you can dance around in it with your siblings. Maybe when you’re back we’ll have a rainstorm just for us_.

Lance pauses, feels himself waver.

 _Love_ , the postcard finishes, _Keith_.

Love, Lance thinks, and he topples over against his pillow and clutches the postcard with its mountain rain scene to his chest and closes his eyes against the sudden burn of his tears.

 

***

 

 _Good morning_ , he writes the next day. _I love you_.

 _Just for us_ , he wants to scream at Keith’s face when they board the bus. _You’re a rainstorm in me_ , he wants to whisper against Keith’s shoulder.

But he smiles and he holds Keith’s hand and he steals a kiss before they get to school.

“Exhibitit,” Keith tries at their lockers while Lance and Hunk try to coach him through it. “Exhibitibit.” He scowls and flushes.

“Oh boy,” Hunk says.

“I broke it,” Keith moans. “I broke me!”

 _I love you_ , Lance thinks and squeezes Keith’s hand and presses his forehead to Keith’s temple. _I love you_.

It means something new each time he thinks it. Each time he says it. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me @ lance: boy.........  
> me @ hunk: boy............  
> me @ keith: boy....................


End file.
